THE    HENCHMAN 


THE    HENCHMAN 


BY 


MARK   LEE   LUTHER 

AUTHOR  OF   "THE   FAVOR   OF  PRINCES,"   "THE   RECKONING" 
"THE  LIVERY  OF   HONOR,"   ETC. 


ff  otfe 
THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD.    ' 
1902 

All  rights  reservtd 


COPYRIGHT,  1902, 
BY  THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  October,  1902.     Reprinted  November, 
1902. 


J  8.  CuBhing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


222S382 


THOSE  familiar  with  the  early  history  of  Western 
New  York  will  know  the  "  Tuscarora  Stories  "  of  this 
volume  for  twice-told  tales  which  the  author  has  ven- 
tured to  adapt  from  the  suggestive  "  Pioneer  History  of 
Orleans  County,"  by  Judge  Arad  Thomas. 


BOOK    I 


The   Henchman 

CHAPTER   I 

IT  was  the  custom  of  the  geographers  of  a 
period  not  remote  to  grapple  somewhat  jejune 
facts  to  the  infant  mind  by  means  of  fanciful 
comparison :  thus,  Italy  was  likened  to  a  boot, 
France  to  a  coffee-pot,  and  the  European  domain 
of  the  Sultan  to  a  ruffling  turkey.  In  this  pleas- 
ant scheme  the  state  of  New  York  was  made  to 
figure  as  a  couchant  lion,  his  massy  head  thrust 
high  in  the  North  Country,  his  forepaws  dabbled 
in  the  confluence  of  the  Hudson  and  the  Sound, 
his  middle  and  hinder  parts  stretched  lazily  west- 
ward to  Lake  Erie  and  the  Niagara.  Roughly 
speaking,  in  this  noble  animal's  rounding  haunch, 
which  Ontario  cools,  lies  the  Demijohn  Congres- 
sional District  whose  majority  party  was  now  in 
convention  assembled.  In  election  returns  and 
official  utterances  generally  the  Demijohn  Dis- 
trict bore  a  number  like  every  district  in  the  land, 
but  the  singular  shape  lent  it  by  the  last  gerry- 

3 


4  THE    HENCHMAN 

mander  had  settled  its  popular  title  till  another 
political  overturn  should  distort  its  outline  afresh. 

The  spokesman  of  the  defeated  faction  had 
been  recognized  by  the  chair,  and  was  moving 
that  the  convention's  choice  of  the  gentleman 
from  Tuscarora  County  be  declared  unanimous. 
His  manner  was  even  more  perfunctory  than  his 
words. 

"  The  name  of  Calvin  Ross  Shelby,"  he  ended 
colorlessly,  "  spells  success." 

"  Screws  it  out  as  if  it  hurt  him,"  whispered 
the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers  to  the  nominee.  "  I 
tell  you,  Ross,  there's  no  argument  like  delegates." 

Bowers  was  a  thick-set  man  of  the  later  sixties, 
with  a  certain  surface  resemblance  to  General 
Grant  of  which  he  was  vain.  So  far  as  he  could 
he  underlined  the  likeness,  affecting  a  close- 
trimmed  beard,  a  campaign  hat,  and  the  inevi- 
table cigar ;  when  the  occasion  promised  publicity 
sufficient  to  outweigh  the  physical  discomfort  he 
even  rode  on  horseback ;  and  he  was  a  notable 
figure  on  Decoration  Day  and  at  all  public  cere- 
monies of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic. 
Shelby  was  his  protege. 

The  present  member  of  Congress  from  the 
Demijohn  District,  whose  seat  Shelby  coveted, 
may  be  most  charitably  described  as  a  man  of 


THE    HENCHMAN  5 

tactless  integrity.  His  course  in  Washington  had 
been  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  organization  by 
whose  sufferance  he  rose,  with  the  upshot  that  the 
Tartar  neared  the  end  of  his  stewardship  backed 
by  a  faction  rather  than  a  party.  The  faction 
clamored  for  his  renomination  and  pushed  their 
spirited,  if  poorly  generalled,  fight  to  the  floor  of 
the  convention.  In  debate  they  were  eloquent, 
in  logic  unanswerable ;  nor  did  any  one  attempt 
to  answer  them.  With  the  best  of  possible 
causes  they  lacked  but  the  best  of  possible  worlds 
to  insure  success.  The  whole  story  of  their  fail- 
ure was  packed  into  the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers's 
succinct  phrase,  "  There's  no  argument  like 
delegates." 

The  vanquished  clustered  in  a  little  group 
apart  marked  by  a  suggestion  of  tense  nerves,  but 
the  gathering  was  noticeably  of  a  kind.  Country 
lawyers,  bankers,  merchants,  stockmen,  farmers, 
in  its  units,  it  was  sealed  as  a  whole  with  the  seal 
of  New  England  which  had  sent  forth  these 
men's  grandfathers  and  great-grandfathers  in 
their  ox-carts  to  people  and  leaven  the  West. 
The  transplanted  New  Englandism  had  sloughed 
certain  traits  of  the  pioneers  who  laid  the  axe  to 
the  forests  of  the  Genesee  Country  and  the  Hol- 
land Purchase.  Only  the  older  people  of  the 


6  THE    HENCHMAN 

Demijohn  District  now  computed  their  dealings 
in  shillings ;  mentioning  one's  conscience  on 
week-days  was  an  eccentricity  ;  the  doctrine  of 
Original  Sin  had  lapsed  from  among  burning 
topics  of  conversation ;  family  records  were  less 
and  less  scrupulously  kept;  and  the  Mayflower's 
claim  to  consideration  as  the  Noah's  Ark  of  the 
only  ancestors  worth  reckoning  had  assumed  a 
mask  of  comedy.  Yet,  all  said,  the  Yankee 
blood  cropped  out  in  face  and  limb  and  speech  — 
particularly  in  speech ;  the  folk  of  the  Demijohn 
District  did  not  employ  the  dialect  of  Hosea 
Biglow,  nor  a  variant  of  it,  but  the  insistent 
drawling  R  to  be  heard  on  every  second  lip  was 
of  no  doubtful  lineage. 

The  victor,  who  sat  with  folded  arms  as  the 
perfunctory  motion  was  seconded  and  carried, 
was  bone  of  their  bone  and  flesh  of  their  flesh. 
Not  a  few  there  could  recall  his  sturdy  grand- 
father, a  pioneer  of  Massachusetts  birth,  and 
everybody  remembered  his  spendthrift  father  who 
had  squandered  the  substance  of  three  genera- 
tions in  drink.  The  man's  own  story  was  an 
open  page  which  needed  no  thumbing  of  the 
Tuscarora  County  history  to  find.  Born  under 
the  administration  of  Buchanan,  the  lad's  palm 
was  callous  with  work  by  the  surrender  of  Lee, 


THE    HENCHMAN  7 

and  it  knew  no  softening  till  his  seventeenth 
year ;  yet  somehow  he  got  the  marrow  from  the 
common  schools,  and  in  good  time  won  a  com- 
petitive scholarship  in  a  narrow  little  sectarian 
college  which  boastfully  called  itself  a  university. 
Here  he  acquired  two  wholesome  things :  a  per- 
ception that  the  college  is  but  the  beginning  of 
education,  and  a  lasting  disgust  with  bigotry 
of  every  stripe.  There  followed  some  years  of 
school-mastering  by  day  and  law-book  drudgery 
by  night,  whose  end  was  his  admission  to  the 
bar  and  a  partnership  with  the  man  sitting  by  his 
side.  Then  politics  drew  him,  and,  step  by  step, 
through  rough  and  ready  service  at  the  polls, 
in  town  caucus,  county  convention,  what  not,  he 
secured  his  footing  and  finally  a  seat  in  the  lower 
house  of  the  State  Legislature.  In  politics  a 
hobby  is  often  a  useful  piece  of  property,  and 
Shelby,  who  had  a  hobby,  rode  it  to  success ;  it 
made  him  a  marked  man  in  the  first  month  of 
his  term,  it  gave  him  a  popular  title,  it  compelled 
his  renomination  and  reelection.  Nowadays  chair- 
men always  introduced  him  as  the  "  Champion  of 
Canals,"  and  even  at  this  moment  the  catchword 
with  cries  of  "  speech  "  greeted  him  from  every 
quarter  of  the  dingy  convention  hall.  He  un- 
fleshed his  strong  teeth  in  a  wide-mouthed  smile, 


8  THE    HENCHMAN 

rose,  squared  his  shoulders,  and  walked  alertly 
down  an  aisle  to  the  platform.  Brought  thus 
into  the  open,  under  the  yellow  glare  of  a  gas- 
light chandelier,  he  showed  for  a  simply  clad, 
businesslike  person,  with  a  well-set  head  and  a 
shaven  jaw,  whose  firmness  a  cushion  of  super- 
fluous flesh  could  not  disguise. 

"  Thank  you, -boys,"  he  said. 

The  offhand  fashion  of  address  provoked  a 
fresh  demonstration  which  the  nominee  acknowl- 
edged with  a  good-humored  nod.  His  eye 
sauntered  over  the  delegates,  and  with  a  shrewd 
twinkle  halted  on  the  dejected  group  which  had 
fought  his  nomination. 

"  This  happy  occasion  reminds  me  of  a  Tusca- 
rora  County  story,"  he  began,  with  a  little  drawl; 
"  the  story  of  Tired  Tinkham's  election  as  over- 
seer of  highways  at  Noah's  Basin  —  a  pioneer 
classic  which  some  of  you  have  doubtless  heard. 
It  happened  in  the  early  days  of  Noah's  Basin, 
when  that  interesting  village  contained  perhaps  a 
score  less  people  than  walk  its  changeless  streets 
to-day.  Tired  Tinkham  was  the  local  Rip  Van 
Winkle  —  the  children's  friend  and  labor's  foe. 
No  one  could  whittle  green  willow  whistles  in 
the  springtime  like  Tired  Tinkham,  or  fashion 
bows  and  arrows  with  such  fascinating  skill.  Like 


THE    HENCHMAN  9 

Rip  also  he  drank  whenever  a  drink  was  forthcom- 
ing, but  unlike  Rip  he  did  not  hunt.  Minks, 
coons,  and  squirrels  were  plentiful,  with  here  and 
there  a  deer  or  bear,  but  Tired  Tinkham  was  too 
weary  to  hunt.  He  fished  ;  fished  day  in  and  day 
out  in  the  canal  basin,  which  gives  the  place  its 
name ;  fished  till  the  packet  captains  came  to  know 
him  and  point  him  out  as  a  fixture  in  the  scenery. 
But,  lazy  as  he  was,  Tired  Tinkham  didn't  mo- 
nopolize all  the  laziness  in  Noah's  Basin.  In  one 
particular  laziness  was  epidemic,  even  among  the 
otherwise  industrious,  and  it  took  the  form  of 
shirking  the  road  tax.  No  roads  were  wretcheder 
than  theirs  ;  nobody  cared  less  than  they.  In  his 
personal  view  of  life  Tired  Tinkham  was  a  fit 
exponent  of  the  local  theory  of  public  duty,  and 
some  village  humorist  accordingly  hit  upon  the 
idea  of  nominating  him  for  overseer  of  highways. 
Tired  Tinkham  looked  more  than  commonly 
fatigued  at  the  suggestion,  but  did  not  put  the 
crown  away.  His  election  was  unanimous. 
Then  Noah's  Basin  woke  up.  The  jubilee  bon- 
fires were  scarcely  ashes  before  Tired  Tinkham 
delivered  at  the  corner  grocery  what  he  called  his 
inaugural  address.  '  I  cal'late  I  know  why  I  wuz 
'lected,'  he  said.  <T'  loaf  V  let  ye  loaf.  I 
cal'late  ye've  mistook  suthin'.  Ye'll  work.' 


io  THE    HENCHMAN 

And  work  Noah's  Basin  did  as  it  had  never 
worked  before." 

Shelby  noted  that  the  anecdote  won  even  a 
thin-lipped  grin  from  the  hostile  camp. 

"  The  Tired  Tinkhams  aren't  so  rare  in 
politics,"  he  went  on.  "  We  sometimes  put  them 
in  the  White  House.  Americans  have  a  way  of 
growing  up  to  their  responsibilities,  and  perhaps 
even  I  shall  prove  another  sort  of  man  than  I've 
been  ticketed."  His  tone  quickened  suddenly, 
and  his  glance  fastened  on  the  defeated  anew. 
"  I  should  count  this  honor  less  had  it  fallen  as  a 
ripe  fruit  falls,  the  prize  of  the  first  comer.  We've 
had  our  battle ;  we  wear  our  scars ;  no  battle 
worth  the  name  is  without  its  scars ;  but  I 
assume  to  speak  for  every  man  present  when  I 
say  that  the  blows  we  give  and  take  do  not  rankle 
to  the  prejudice  of  the  common  cause.  Our 
quarrels  are  wholly  in  the  family,  where  speech  is 
free,  for  it  is  a  fundamental  article  of  our  party 
creed  that  the  will  of  the  majority  should  prevail. 
The  will  of  the  majority  made  plain,  it  is  our 
healthy  custom  to  strip  off  our  coats,  and  go  to 
work.  The  party,  not  the  individual,  is  of 
moment ;  —  the  historic  party  of  our  fathers,  the 
party  of  the  living  present,  the  party  of  the 
future  whose  bounds  no  man  may  set." 


THE   HENCHMAN  n 

As  he  dropped  into  his  seat,  Shelby  added  a 
foot-note. 

"  If  that  didn't  jam  their  duty  down  those 
soreheads'  throats,"  he  told  Bowers,  "  I'll  take 
another  guess." 


CHAPTER   II 

MEANWHILE  the  nominee's  fortunes  and  traits 
of  character  underwent  dissection  in  his  own 
town  at  the  first  autumn  assembly  of  the  Culture 
Club  which,  as  always,  met  with  Mrs.  Milliard. 
There  were  two  profound  reasons  for  this  con- 
stancy to  Mrs.  Hilliard,  —  her  house  boasted  the 
largest  double  parlors  in  New  Babylon,  and  her 
husband  had'  a  billiard  table.  The  intimate  as- 
sociation of  billiards  with  the  pursuit  of  sweetness 
and  light  may  at  first  seem  grotesque,  but  Mrs. 
Hilliard  proved  it  to  be  not  without  warrant  in 
sound  philosophy ;  by  her  simple  formula  bil- 
liards stood  to  culture  as  the  Salvation  Army  to 
the  decorous  body  of  the  Church  Militant,  both 
alliances  resting  on  the  basic  truth  that  some 
souls  will  prick  ears  only  to  the  beating  of  tom- 
toms. 

Theory  aside,  the  fact  was  not  to  be  blinked 
that  she  knew  how  to  clash  cymbals  to  the  un- 
regenerate  and  drum  up  in  the  name  of  culture 
such  a  varied  company  as  no  other  woman  could 
muster  short  of  a  silver  wedding.  In  the  winning 
of  the  cultivated,  Mrs.  Hilliard  took  no  pride. 

12 


THE   HENCHMAN  13 

They  lent  their  countenance  to  any  educational 
project,  and  she  owned  to  herself  that  given  a  like 
cause  any  capable  woman  with  double  parlors 
could  have  them  for  the  asking.  It  was  rather 
in  the  hooking  of  men  of  the  stamp  of  the  Hon. 
Seneca  Bowers  and  her  own  husband  that  she 
gloried,  for  in  their  candid  souls  they  styled 
great  Shakespeare  rot  and  voted  Ibsen  and  Tolstoi 
sheer  bedlamites  at  large.  While  mind  met  mind 
below  stairs  these  honest  gentlemen  contentedly 
knocked  the  balls  about  the  green,  smoked  hos- 
pitable Joe  Hilliard's  cigars,  and  sampled  the 
choicest  liquors  of  his  sideboard.  By  such  di- 
plomacy every  important  walk  in  the  town's  life 
came  to  have  its  representative  in  what  in  her 
heart  of  hearts  Mrs.  Hilliard  called  her  salon. 

The  first  autumn  meeting  should  have  glad- 
dened the  hostess.  Her  house  had  never  lighted 
to  better  advantage ;  everybody  admired  the  new 
decorations  ;  she  herself  felt  no  impulse  to  quarrel 
either  with  nature  or  her  dressmaker;  the  pro- 
gramme had  run  with  consummate  smoothness, 
—  Volney  Sprague,  the  editor  of  the  Tuscarora 
County  Whig)  reading  a  scholarly  paper  on  Shake- 
speare's anachronisms,  and  his  fast  friend  Bernard 
Graves  leading  the  discussion  in  his  usual  clever 
way ;  furthermore,  the  ices  which  had  been  ordered 


I4  THE    HENCHMAN 

for  this  very  special  occasion  had  proved  every- 
thing that  ices  should  be.  Yet  Mrs.  Milliard 
was  dissatisfied. 

"  The  club  positively  loses  a  vital  something 
of  its  individuality  when  Mr.  Bowers  and  Mr. 
Shelby  are  absent,"  said  she. 

Mrs.  Bowers,  a  large  placid  personage  of  in- 
definite waist-line,  remarked  that  nothing  except 
politics  could  have  dragged  her  husband  away. 

"What  a  pity  that  the  Hon.  Seneca  had  to 
miss  your  anachronisms,  Volney,"  murmured 
Bernard  Graves,  who  was  a  personable  young 
gentleman  of  thirty. 

"And  Shelby,"  queried  the  editor,  "hasn't 
that  choice  spirit  your  pity  too  ?  " 

Mrs.  Milliard  caught  nothing  of  their  sarcasm 
save  Shelby's  name. 

"  I  miss  his  criticism,"  she  declared.  "  It's  so 
practical." 

The  editor  fell  to  polishing  his  eye-glasses  for 
lack  of  a  reply. 

"  And  so  helpful,"  pursued  the  lady.  "  He 
has  the  faculty  of  ending  a  tangled  discussion 
with  a  word." 

"  The  dear  man  usually  changes  the  subject," 
muttered  the  editor  savagely  under  cover  of  an 
amiable  platitude  put  forth  by  Mrs.  Bowers. 


THE    HENCHMAN  15 

"  Or  fogs  it  round  with  one  of  his  Tuscarora 
yarns,"  dropped  Graves. 

The  topic  apparently  knew  no  bottom  for 
Mrs.  Milliard. 

"  How  he  will  shine  in  Congress ! "  she  went 
on.  "  Of  course  he'll  get  the  nomination  ?  " 
She  referred  the  query  to  Sprague. 

"  Probably."      His  reply  was  lukewarm. 

"  And  isn't  there  news  of  the  convention  ?  You 
ought  to  know,  who  get  straight  from  the  wires 
what  ordinary  mortals  must  wait  to  read.  Has 
he  won  ? " 

"  There  was  nothing  definite  when  I  left  the 
office.  They  hadn't  begun  to  ballot." 

Mrs.  Hilliard  sensed  an  increasing  dryness  in 
the  editor's  manner. 

"  We're  not  talking  literature,  are  we  ? "  she 
laughed. 

Bernard  Graves  considered  the  moment  ripe 
for  a  paradox. 

"  The  by-laws  of  the  ideal  literary  club  would 
forbid  all  literary  talk,"  he  declared.  "  Then 
there  would  be  nothing  else." 

"  Cynic,"  rebuked  the  lady,  threatening  punish- 
ment with  her  fan.  "  We  shall  talk  politics  if  we 
choose." 

Disseminating  culture  and  an  odor  of  patchouli 


16  THE    HENCHMAN 

she  drifted  down  the  drawing-room  to  join  another 
group,  and  the  two  men  caught  a  fragment  of 
feminine  comment  from  a  divan  hard  by. 

"  Cora  Hilliard  is  handsome,"  asserted  a  voice. 
"  Look  at  those  shoulders." 

"  She  manreuvres  to  show  them.  Besides,  she's 
too  stout." 

"  What  can  you  expect,  my  dear,  after  thirty- 
three  years  of  idleness  ?  " 

"  She's  thirty-six,"  came  the  scrupulous  cor- 
rection. 

"  You  don't  mean  it  ?     And  a  blonde  !  " 

"  Oh,  I  know  it's  so.  We  were  classmates  in 
the  seminary.  Besides,  her  Milicent  is  a  year 
and  two  months  older  than  my  Georgie,  who  will 
be  thirteen  in  October,  and  when  Milicent  was 
born  her  mother  was  twenty-two." 

"  She  says  she  feels  twenty-two  now." 

"  Well,  she  looks  —  "  the  gossip  languished  to 
an  indistinct  murmur. 

"  More  literary  discussion,"  said  Sprague. 

"  It's  as  literary  as  politics." 

"  You're  capable  of  saying  it's  as  interesting." 

"  Why  not  ?     It's  very  human." 

"  So  is  politics." 

"  We  are  drifting  on  the  rocks  of  an  argument. 
You  and  I  can't  agree  about  politics,  and  we'd 


THE   HENCHMAN  17 

better  stop  trying.     What  absorbs  you  bores  me 

—  this  tiresome  Shelby  above  all." 

"  Oh,  surely  you're  not  serious,"  protested 
Sprague,  eagerly.  "  It  isn't  possible  that  you  care 
nothing  whether  Shelby  or  the  honest  man  he's 
scheming  to  supplant  represents  you  in  Washing- 
ton." 

"  He  attracts  me  neither  as  a  man  nor  as  a 
problem  in  ethics.  But  don't  be  harsh  with  me. 
The  fault  is  congenital,  I'm  sure.  Every  mascu- 
line American  is  supposed  to  be  interested  in  poli- 
tics, —  I  wonder  if  the  Irish  invented  the  notion, 

—  but  I  can't  conform ;  I  don't  know  why." 

"  Gad,"  fumed  the  editor.  "  Your  indifference 
is  criminal." 

"  I  like  to  hear  you  say  f  gad,'  "  Graves  ob- 
served. "  You  remind  me  of  Major  Pendennis." 

Sprague  shrugged  his  thin  shoulders  impa- 
tiently. 

"  I  tell  you  it's  a  crime  for  you  to  sit  by  as  un- 
concerned as  a  mud  idol  while  other  men  struggle 
for  civic  decency." 

"  Picturesque  as  usual,"  applauded  the  delin- 
quent, unruffled ;  but  he  added,  more  seriously : 
"  It's  natural  that  you  should  feel  strongly  after 
your  newspaper  war  on  Shelby.  Is  he  so  sure 
of  the  nomination  ?  " 


i8  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  If  he's  not  sure,  there's  no  virtue  in  packed 
caucuses." 

"  There,  that  interests  me,"  cried  Graves, 
brightening.  "  I'd  like  to  see  a  caucus  packed. 
The  slang  attracts  me  somehow.  Is  it  very 
shocking  ?  " 

Sprague  laughed  in  spite  of  himself. 

"  In  things  political  your  artlessness  is  pre- 
historic," he  said.  "  You  belong  in  the  Stone 
Age.  All  in  all,  you  and  Ross  Shelby  aren't  far 
removed :  he's  politically  immoral ;  you  are 
politically  unmoral." 

"  We'll  go  and  talk  to  Ruth  Temple,"  decided 
the  younger  man,  his  eye  lighting  on  the  central 
figure  of  a  group,  chiefly  masculine.  "  Who  can 
look  at  her  and  maintain  that  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  women  is  a  mere  factory  for  frumps  ?  " 

"  Ruth  has  a  quaint  rareness  all  her  own," 
Sprague  answered,  watching  the  play  of  the  girl's 
mobile  face.  "  She  had  it  as  a  mere  tot.  Is  it 
her  mouth,  her  simple  dress,  her  hair  ?  —  One 
can't  say  precisely  what." 

"  Don't  try.  You're  squinting  at  her  like  an 
entomologist  over  a  favorite  beetle.  Take  her 
for  what  she  seems,  and  chuck  analysis.  She  is 
decorative.  She  satisfies  the  optic  nerve." 

"  Which  is  intimately  allied  with  other  nerves, 


THE    HENCHMAN  19 

my  bachelor."  He  counted  the  men  around  the 
sofa  where  the  girl  sat  beside  little  Milicent  Hil- 
liard,  and  announced,  "  Seven ;  it's  Queen  Ruth 
always." 

"  And,  like  a  true  monarch,  bored  to  extinction 
by  her  courtiers.  Behold  Dr.  Crandall  brow- 
beating the  Rev.  Mr.  Hewett  like  a  hanging 
judge.  I'll  warrant  they're  talking  politics  too. 
The  atmosphere  is  drenched  with  it." 

Sprague  bent  his  head  to  listen. 

"  Wrong,"  he  chuckled  slyly.  "  It's  literature 
this  time,  or  what  passes  as  such.  They're  thresh- 
ing out  the  immortal  ode  on  the  "  Victory  of 
Samothrace." 

Bernard  Graves  laughed,  also,  at  some  jest  well 
understood,  and  moved  to  watch  this  eddy  in  the 
astonishingly  widespread  discussion  of  an  anony- 
mous poem,  of  a  certain  rhetorical  vigor,  which 
had  been  interpreted  by  some  critics  as  a  plea  for 
woman  suffrage.  At  this  juncture  Mrs.  Hilliard 
suddenly  bore  down  upon  them,  flourishing  a 
yellow  paper. 

"  Such  news,  such  news  !  "  she  called.  "  Here's 
a  telegram  —  a  telegram  from  our  candidate.  He 
is  nominated!  Mr.  Shelby  is  nominated.  Think 
of  it !  One  of  our  members  !  And  he  has  wired 
the  good  news  to  us  first  of  all !  "  She  searched 


20  THE    HENCHMAN 

vainly  for  her  glasses  —  her  big  blue  eyes  were 
astigmatic  —  and  finally,  with  an  impatient  "  You 
read  it  to  them  all,"  thrust  the  message  into 
Volney  Sprague's  reluctant  fingers. 

He  unfolded  and  read  the  paper,  in  lively 
quandary  whether  her  choice  were  as  haphazard 
as  it  seemed  :  — 

"  Nominated  on  first  ballot.  Home  ten-thirty. 
Coming  directly  to  club.  It  stands  first. 

"  C.  R.  SHELBY." 

"  Isn't  that  simply  dear  of  him  ?  "  demanded 
Mrs.  Hilliard.  "  We  come  first.  He  remem- 
bers us  in  his  hour  of  triumph.  It  shows  the 
true  nature  of  the  man." 

"  It  does  indeed,"  grumbled  Sprague,  shifting 
within  pinching  distance  of  Bernard  Graves, 
whom  he  had  seen  grinning  in  the  background 
during  the  reading.  "  It's  a  barefaced  bid  for 
votes." 

Mrs.  Hilliard's  enthusiasm  demanded  a 
vent. 

"  He'll  be  here  in  five  minutes,"  she  ex- 
claimed, peering  at  the  hall  clock.  "  The  mes- 
sage was  delayed  somehow,  and  his  train  is 
due  now.  We  must  devise  a  reception.  We 
owe  it  to  him.  He  thought  of  us.  We  must 


THE    HENCHMAN  21 

think  of  him.  What  shall  we  do  ?  Think,  think, 
you  clever  people  !  " 

"  That  preposterous  woman  means  to  turn  this 
into  a  ratification  meeting,"  groaned  the  editor 
under  his  breath.  "  I  must  get  out." 

His  hostess  was  of  another  mind,  however,  and 
barred  retreat  when  he  attempted  to  make  his 
excuses. 

"  You  shan't  desert  us,"  she  declared  roguishly. 
"  You  can't,"  she  immediately  added,  at  the 
sound  of  carriage  wheels  on  the  gravel  of  the 
drive.  "  He's  here  !  The  hall,  the  hall  !  Into 
the  hall ! "  And  into  the  hall  Mrs.  Hilliard 
masterfully  bundled  the  Culture  Club  of  New 
Babylon,  grouping  it  theatrically  around  the 
newel-post  and  up  the  winding  stair. 

"  Gad,"  muttered  Sprague,  struggling  to  efface 
himself,  "  knock  me  in  the  head." 

Bernard  Graves  gleefully  struck  an  attitude 
behind  a  friendly  palm,  and  Mrs.  Hilliard  threw 
wide  the  door. 

"  Welcome  to  your  own  people,"  she  cried,  and 
Shelby,  closely  followed  by  Bowers,  crossed  the 
threshold  into  the  light.  Then  big  Joe  Hilliard, 
whom  the  unwonted  commotion  had  attracted 
from  the  billiard  room,  led  a  boisterous  cheer, 
which  the  candidate  received  with  modestly  bowed 


22  THE    HENCHMAN 

head.  He  flushed,  and  wrestled  with  his  diffi- 
dence like  a  schoolboy,  as  the  house  grew  still 
and  they  waited  for  him  to  speak. 

"I  —  I    don't   claim    the   credit,  friends,"  he 
stammered.     "  It's  your  victory." 


CHAPTER   III 

MIDWAY  in  the  following  forenoon  Shelby  sat 
in  his  law  office  revising  for  the  seventh  time  the 
last  will  and  testament  of  the  Widow  Weatherwax. 
It  was  the  seventh  revision  of  her  third  last  will 
and  testament,  to  speak  by  the  card,  for  the 
widow  had  a  bent  for  will-making,  which  the 
lawyer  had  noticed  was  of  periodic  intensity. 
Once,  in  a  moment  of  drollery,  he  entered  a 
jocose  memorandum  in  the  "  tickler,"  under  the 
first  week-day  of  several  successive  months  :  "  Re- 
vise Mrs.  Weatherwax's  will ;  "  and  such  was  his 
foresight  that  twice  only  during  that  term  did  she 
frustrate  his  prophecy. 

This  day,  as  always,  she  attained  the  topmost 
step  outside  his  office  door  breathless,  and,  as  al- 
ways, Shelby  gravely  lent  a  hand  to  deposit  her 
plump  little  person  in  the  softest  of  his  old- 
fashioned  office  chairs.  The  ceremony  ended 
regularly  with  the  panting  announcement,  "  The 
Lord  has  spared  me  for  another  month." 

23 


24  THE    HENCHMAN 

It  was  the  man's  custom  at  such  times  to  allot 
equal  praise  to  Providence  and  the  widow's  mar- 
vellous vitality  for  this  happy  issue,  and  to  hazard 
a  guess  that  she  had  thought  of  important  changes 
for  her  will.  The  widow  would  nod  assent  over 
a  heaving  bosom,  and  slowly  fan  herself  back  to 
normal  respiration.  The  relict  of  a  leather-lunged 
Free  Methodist  preacher,  she  affected  a  garb  of 
ostentatious  simplicity.  No  godless  pleats  or 
tucks  or  gores  or  ruffles  or  sinful  abominations  of 
braid  defaced  the  chaste  sobriety  of  her  black 
gown  ;  buttons  were  tolerated  merely  as  buttons, 
without  vain  thought  of  ornament;  and  the 
strange  little  bonnet,  which  she  perched  above 
hair  whose  natural  coquetry  of  curl  was  austerely 
sleeked  away,  was  of  a  composition  so  harshly 
ugly  that  more  worldly-minded  women  shuddered 
at  the  sight.  The  worldly-minded,  indeed,  were 
prone  to  the  criticism  that  the  material  of  Mrs. 
Weatherwax's  garments  was  beyond  cavil,  but  this 
surely  was  her  own  concern.  It  were  sheer  im- 
pertinence to  finger  the  texture  of  a  zealot's 
sackcloth. 

Shelby  busied  himself  with  his  papers,  pending 
her  recovery. 

"  Them  stairs  alluz  give  me  sech  a  turn,"  she 
sighed  at  length.  She  enunciated  her  R's  with 


THE    HENCHMAN  25 

the  merciless  fidelity  of  her  section  at  its  worst, 
saying  stair-urs  and  tur-urn. 

"  Too  bad  the  town's  boom  stopped  short  of 
elevators,"  sympathized  Shelby. 

"  Shouldn't  use  'em,  anyway,"  returned  the 
widow,  firmly.  "  They  give  me  a  wuss  turn  than 
the  stairs." 

"  They're  trying  moving  stairways  in  some 
places,  —  a  French  invention,  I  believe." 

"  Shouldn't  use  them  contrapshuns  neither. 
The  French  are  a  godless  people,  full  of  vanity 
and  all  uncleanness." 

Shelby's  imagination  balked  at  suggesting 
another  alternative,  and  he  held  his  peace.  The 
visitor's  jetty  eyes  forsook  his  face  and  pounced 
upon  the  clerk,  who,  with  tongue  in  cheek,  was 
filling  out  narrow  slips  of  paper  at  a  battered 
table  clothed  in  a  baize  of  a  dye  traditionally  held 
to  have  been  green. 

"  How's  your  ma's  lumbago,  Willie  Irons  ?  " 
she  demanded. 

The  youth  stammered  a  husky  reply,  and 
blushed  far  into  his  brick-colored  hair.  He  was 
of  an  age  when  a  babyish  diminutive  becomes  a 
thorn  unspeakable.  Mrs.  Weatherwax  glanced 
tranquilly  past  his  writhings  to  the  ancient 
table. 


26  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Ross,"  she  asked,  "  wa'n't  that  your  grand- 
father's ? " 

"  Yes.     He  used  it  in  his  place  of  business." 

"  I  call  to  mind  seein'  it  in  the  old  distillery 
when  I  was  a  girl,"  pursued  the  widow,  who  never 
called  a  spade  an  agricultural  implement.  "  Dis- 
tillin's  a  wicked  business." 

"  People  thought  differently  about  many  things 
in  my  grandfather's  day." 

The  widow  sniffed.  "  Wrong's  wrong.  Is 
that  Seneca  Bowers's  roll-top  desk  ? " 

"  It  was  Mr.  Bowers's.  I  bought  it  when  we 
dissolved  partnership." 

"  Law  books,  too  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Threw  in  the  pictur's,  I  s'pose  ?  "  indicating 
some  dingy  lithographs  of  political  worthies  past 
and  present. 

"  Yes,"  admitted  Shelby  with  superhuman  good 
nature  ;  "  they  came  to  boot." 

The  widow  sniffed  again.  "  'Pears  to  me," 
said  she,  "  you've  got  nothin'  new." 

The  man  wheeled  in  his  chair  to  a  neighboring 
safe  and  took  a  tape-bound  document  from  a 
pigeon-hole. 

"  Shall  we  begin  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Yes  —  if  you're  so  rushed,"  she  returned,  and 


THE    HENCHMAN  27 

composed  her  features  to  fitting  solemnity.  As 
the  lawyer  slowly  read  the  instrument,  which  he 
could  have  rattled  off  from  memory,  Mrs.Weath- 
erwax  punctuated  the  pious  phrases  of  its  exordium 
with  approving  wags.  "  *  Frail  and  transitory/  ' 
she  interpolated ;  "  that's  jest  what  life  is.  I 
might  be  took  any  minute."  At  the  reference  to 
the  payment  of  her  lawful  debts  she  recovered  her 
spirits  sufficiently  to  put  in  that  she  did  not  owe 
a  "red  cent,"  as  everybody  knew.  Finally  she 
called  a  halt.  "  Needn't  go  any  farther,"  she 
directed.  "  The  first  part's  what  I  like  to  hear 
best.  Exceptin'  one  thing,  all  the  rest  about  my 
green  rep  sofy  a-goin'  to  Cousin  Phcebe,  the  pickle- 
caster  to  Brother  Henry,  the  old  dishes  what  can't 
be  sold  to  my  beloved  nephew,  Jason  Weather- 
wax,  and  my  best  tablecloths  and  sheets  and  pil- 
low-slips to  his  little  Ann  Eliza  when  she  gets  a 
husband  what's  a  good  provider,  is  fixed  jest  as  it 
hed  ought  to  be.  What  I  want  now  is  a  post- 
script." 

"  Another  codicil  ?     Very  well." 

He  made  note  of  her  wishes  concerning  a  cher- 
ished feather  bed  which  it  had  struck  her  was  too 
good  for  that  "  shiftless  coot,"  Cousin  Phoebe's 
husband,  to  lie  upon,  and,  bidding  her  bring  her 
witnesses  on  the  morrow,  bustled  the  will  into  his 


28  THE    HENCHMAN 

safe  and  fell  upon  his  papers  after  the  manner  of 
all  lawyer  kind  since  Chaucer's  sergeant  of  the  law 
who  "  semed  besier  than  he  was." 

The  widow  eyed  his  movements  placidly. 

"  In  a  stew  to  hev  me  go  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Of  course  not,"  Shelby  protested.  "  What 
put  that  in  your  head  ?  " 

"  Your  squirmin'  round.  Seein'  I'm  entirely 
welcome,  I'll  set  a  piece." 

Shelby  restrained  the  delight  he  said  he  felt 
and  returned  to  his  papers  under  her  relentless 
scrutiny. 

"  Telegraphs  of  congratulashun,  I  s'pose,"  the 
visitor  presently  observed. 

"  Yes  ;  my  friends  are  rejoicing  with  me." 

"  Everybody  tickled  ?  " 

"  All  but  the  common  enemy,  I  trust." 

"  I  ain't  hed  a  chance  to  go  about  much  and 
ask,"  said  the  widow,  with  a  preliminary  sniff; 
"  but  I've  met  some  as  wa'n't  tickled  or  enemies 
neither." 

"  No  ?  Well,  after  all,  this  isn't  paradise,  but 
New  York  politics." 

"  At  Tompkins's  —  I  alluz  go  to  him  for  my 
Oolong  —  I  heard  that  Doc  Crandall  won't  vote 
for  you  after  your  dead  set  at  the  place.  He's 
one  of  your  party,  isn't  he  ? " 


THE    HENCHMAN  29 

"  Yes.  The  doctor  is  one  of  us.  Good  fellow, 
too." 

"And  at  Brady's,  where  I  get  my  corn  meal,  I 
heard  somebody  say  you've  got  the  Irish  down  on 
you." 

"  Oh,  I  hope  not,"  returned  the  candidate, 
cheerfully.  "They're  a  most  respectable  and 
industrious  factor  in  our  town's  life.  I  like  the 
Irish." 

"  I  s'pose." 

He  searched  her  face  and  concluded  that  her 
irony  was  unconscious  ;  she  undeceived  him. 

"  Butter  wouldn't  melt  in  your  mouth  now 
you're  runnin'  for  office,"  she  said,  laboring  to  her 
feet.  "  I'm  s'prised  you  hevn't  wings." 

Shelby  affected  to  relish  the  hoary  jest,  and 
escorted  her  gayly  to  the  door.  "  I'll  look  for 
you  to-morrow,"  he  assured  her. 

"  Don't  strain  your  eyes,"  said  the  widow. 

The  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers  passed  her  on  the 
stairs.  Greeting  the  lawyer,  he  seated  himself 
behind  the  clerk's  back,  with  a  meaning  slant  of 
his  Grant-like  head. 

Shelby  understood.  "  Leave  those  notices  of 
trial  for  the  present,  William,"  he  ordered,  "  and 
get  this  stipulation  signed.  If  the  man  isn't  in 
his  office,  try  the  county  clerk's." 


3o  THE    HENCHMAN 

Bowers  pulled  with  clock-work  precision  at  his 
cigar,  while  the  boy  uncoiled  his  long  legs  from 
his  chair,  and  with  furtive  little  pats  at  his  necktie 
and  fiery  shock,  made  ready  to  go  out.  Shelby 
stumbled  upon  the  waste-paper  basket  as  the  door 
slammed  at  his  clerk's  heels,  and  with  vicious 
satisfaction  he  kicked  it  to  the  room's  far  end. 

The  caller's  eyes  twinkled. 

"  The  Widow  Weatherwax  been  administering 
spiritual  balm  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  could  wring  her  neck,"  Shelby  averred. 

"  Her  will  again  ?  " 

"  Of  course." 

"  You'll  have  it  as  long  as  you  practise  law.  I 
did.  It  goes  with  the  office.  Remunerative  as 
ever  ? " 

"  Talk  about  {  benefit  of  clergy,'  "  exploded  the 
younger  man  ;  "  that  mediaeval  bonanza  isn't  to  be 
mentioned  in  the  same  week  with  the  ministerial 
half-rates,  donations,  and  hold-ups  we  moderns 
put  up  with.  This  pulpit  pounder's  shrew  pays 
me  no  more  than  she  pays  the  doctor,  the  grocer, 
the  butcher,  and  the  rest.  What  a  ukase  I  could 
issue  if  I  were  Czar  of  these  United  States." 

"  Cousin  Phoebe's  { sofy,'  beloved  Nephew 
Jason's  unsalable  dishes,  and  Brother  Henry's 
pickle-caster  still  extant  ?  " 


THE    HENCHMAN  31 

"  Yes,  yes,"  groaned  Shelby. 

"  And  little  Ann  Eliza's  sheets  and  pillow-slips, 
I  dare  say.  It's  astonishing  how  they  endure." 

"  It's  astonishing  how  I  endure." 

"  You  must  —  at  any  rate,  till  the  Tuesday  after 
the  first  Monday  in  November.  Did  the  pious 
gossip  tell  you  any  pleasant  personal  news  ?  " 

"  She  has  heard  talk  that  the  Micks  are  sore 
and  that  Doc  Crandall  has  had  an  attack  of 
virtue." 

"You  needn't  lose  sleep  over  the  handful  of 
Irish  in  our  camp ;  they  know  who  butters  their 
parsnips.  And  I'll  take  care  of  the  doctor. 
He's  an  innocuous  mugwump.  She  didn't  men- 
tion Volney  Sprague  ?  " 

"  Sprague,"  said  Shelby,  wearily  ;  "what  is  that 
man  up  to  now  ?  " 

Bowers  rose,  paced  the  room,  and  returned,  big 
with  news. 

"  The  Whig  has  bolted,  "  he  announced. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SHELBY'S  amaze  spent  its  force  in  an  oath.  In 
a  moment  he  asked,  calmly  :  — 

"  What  does  he  say  ?  " 

"Not  much;  mainly  that  the  manner  of  your 
nomination  debars  his  printing  your  name  at  the 
head  of  his  editorial  page." 

"  Endorses  the  rest  of  our  party  ticket,  doesn't 
he?" 

"Yes;  it's  a  personal  bolt." 

Shelby  ruminated  earnestly. 

"  It's  only  a  one-horse  country  daily,"  he 
declared  finally.  "The  Whig  I  You'd  think 
Henry  Clay  still  above  ground." 

"  Strikes  you  that  way,  does  it  ? "  Bowers 
emitted  with  a  cloud  of  smoke. 

"  Why,  yes.  You  don't  consider  such  a  paper 
dangerous  ? " 

"  All  newspapers  are  dangerous  in  politics ; 
there's  none  too  mean  to  have  its  following.  The 
Whig  has  influence." 

"  It's  a  one-horse  paper,"  reiterated  Shelby. 
32 


THE    HENCHMAN  33 

"  M-yes  ;  it  is  a  slow  coach,"  Bowers  admitted  ; 
"  but  it  suits  a  lot  of  people.  They  respect  it 
because  it  keeps  the  old  name  and  jogs  along  in 
the  old  gait  it  had  under  Volney's  father  before 
him.  It's  been  a  stanch  party  paper,  too,  and 
that  without  soliciting  a  dollar's  worth  of  public 
advertising  or  political  pap  of  any  description. 
The  Whig  doesn't  often  kick  over  the  traces. 
The  Greeley  campaign  was  its  last  bolt." 

"  Well,  the  milk's  spilt,"  said  Shelby,  with 
strenuous  cheerfulness ;  "  we've  one  reason  the 
more  to  make  next  week's  ratification  meeting  a 
rousing  success.  What  did  you  think  of  our 
little  welcome  at  the  club  last  night  ?  " 

Bowers  grinned. 

"  Mrs.  Hilliard  managed  it  first-class,"  he  said ; 
"  but  I  felt  cheap  when  we  came  in." 

"  So  did  I.  The  scheme  seemed  a  good  one 
when  she  suggested  it,  but  when  it  came  right  down 
to  pulling  it  off  I  would  have  sold  out  for  thirty 
cents  on  the  dollar.  It  takes  lovely  woman  to  do 
those  things.  She  has  her  uses  in  politics,  eh  ?  " 

"  M-yes,"  Bowers  answered  in  half  assent ; 
"  but  she's  an  uncertain  quantity.  Like  grand- 
sire's  musket,  she's  as  likely  to  kill  behind  as 
before." 

The  vine-screened  window  in  which  they  now 


34  THE    HENCHMAN 

talked  overlooked  the  neighboring  Temple  house, 
a  dignified  sentry  at  the  point  where  the  leisured 
street  forsook  the  chaffer  of  the  town  to  climb 
amidst  arching  elms  and  maples,  above  whose 
gaudy  autumn  masses  rose  the  dome  of  the  court- 
house and  the  spires  of  many  churches.  It 
was  an  old-fashioned  Georgian  structure  with 
white  columns  clear-cut  against  its  weathered 
brick ;  at  either  side  of  the  low  steps  a  great 
hydrangea,  its  glory  waning  with  the  summer, 
lifted  its  showy  clusters  from  an  urn ;  while  walk 
and  carriage  drive  alike  sauntered  to  the  street 
through  hedgerows  of  box.  The  mouth  of  the 
driveway  at  this  moment  gleamed  white  from  the 
kerchiefs  of  a  knot  of  Polish  children  estray  from 
the  quarry  district,  who,  at  a  laughing  nod  from 
Ruth,  swooped,  a  chattering  barbaric  horde,  on  the 
fallen  apples  dotting  a  bit  of  sward  with  yellow 
and  red.  Shelby  smilingly  watched  the  scramble 
to  its  speedy  end,  and  turned  to  the  giver  of  the 
feast,  who  sat  in  a  sheltered  corner  of  her  veranda 
with  a  caller.  The  latter  proved  to  be  Bernard 
Graves,  sunning  himself  with  a  cat's  content. 

"  Industrious  young  man,"  Shelby  observed 
with  the  irony  of  whole-souled  dislike.  "  In- 
herits a  comfortable  property,  goes  to  an  expensive 
college,  dawdles  through  Europe,  and  then  comes 


THE    HENCHMAN  35 

home  to  play  carpet  knight  and  read  poetry  to 
girls.  Why  doesn't  he  go  to  work  ?  " 

Bowers  made  no  reply  to  the  gibe.  He  was 
watching  Ruth.  Presently  in  his  slow  way  he 
checked  off  her  qualifications  :  — 

"  Handsome  girl,  good  education,  kind  dispo- 
sition, rich,  no  airs,  and  no  incumbrances,  barring 
her  companion,  the  old  maid  cousin,  who  could  be 
pensioned.  Ross,  she'd  do  you  more  good  than 
a  brace  of  married  women." 

Shelby  threw  off  the  laugh  of  a  contented  man. 

"  I'm  not  in  the  marrying  class." 

"  Then  you'd  better  enter."  His  hand  on  the 
door,  Bowers  asked,  "  Your  contribution  for  the 
county  campaign  fund  ready  ?  " 

"  Draw  you  a  check  any  time,"  the  candidate 
returned  jauntily. 

Nevertheless,  when  the  county  leader  had  gone 
Shelby  gave  a  diligent  quarter-hour  to  his  bank- 
book. By  and  by  he  took  an  opera  glass  from  a 
drawer  and  focussed  it  on  the  pair  below.  So  his 
clerk  came  upon  him,  compelling  a  ruse  of  adjust- 
ing the  instrument. 

"  One  lens  has  dust  in  it,"  he  declared.  Per- 
ceiving Bernard  Graves  pass  down  the  box- 
bordered  path,  he  left  his  office  for  the  day. 

That    evening   Shelby   took   certain    steps    to 


36  THE   HENCHMAN 

prosper  his  coming  rally  at  the  court-house,  one 
of  which  was  duly  noted  by  Mrs.  Seneca  Bowers. 
It  was  this  lady's  habit  in  summer  evenings  to 
discuss  the  doings  of  her  immediate  neighbors 
from  her  piazza,  but  now  that  the  nights  were  cool 
she  had  shifted  to  the  bay  window  of  a  room 
styled  by  courtesy  the  library  from  a  small 
bookcase  filled  with  Patent  Office  Reports  and 
similar  offerings  of  a  beneficent  government. 
This  station  embraced  a  wide  prospect  of  shady 
street  flanked  by  pleasantly  sloping  lawns  and 
dwellings  of  various  architectural  pretence.  Most 
proximate  and  most  interesting  to  Mrs.  Bowers 
was  the  Milliard  house,  and  while  she  rocked 
placidly  over  her  darning,  she  contrived  to  hold 
this  gingerbread  edifice  in  a  scrutiny  which  per- 
mitted the  escape  of  no  slightest  movement  of 
chick  or  child.  She  saw  the  newsboy  leave  the 
evening  city  papers  ;  Milicent  Hilliard  dance  down 
the  leaf-strewn  walk  to  a  last  half-hour's  play ;  a 
white-capped  maid  sheet  the  geranium  beds  against 
possible  frost ;  and,  finally,  the  householder  him- 
self emerge  and  light  a  cigar  whose  ruddy  tip 
winked  for  a  second  in  the  thickening  dusk. 
Listing  from  side  to  side,  big  Joe  Hilliard  tramped 
heavily  down  and  away  to  his  nightly  haunt  in  the 
billiard  room  of  the  Tuscarora  House.  As  the 


THE    HENCHMAN  37 

quarry  owner's  great  bulk  vanished  Shelby  entered 
the  scene,  briskly  crosscut  the  Milliard  lawn,  and 
bounded  up  the  steps  just  quitted  by  the  sub- 
stantial Joe. 

"  There  ;  he  's  done  it  again  !  "  exclaimed  Mrs. 
Bowers. 

"  Who  has  done  what  ?  "  grunted  her  husband, 
from  the  lounge.  He  was  coatless  and  shoeless, 
and  had  spread  a  newspaper  over  his  bald  spot  to 
the  annoyance  of  a  few  superannuated  yet  active 
flies. 

"  Ross  Shelby.  He's  gone  to  Cora  Hilliard's 
again  !  " 

"  Well,  let  him,"  said  Bowers,  from  beneath  the 
news  of  the  day.  "  It's  a  free  country." 

Mrs.  Bowers  smoothed  a  mended  sock  and 
rolled  it  into  a  neat  ball  with  its  fellow  by  aid  of 
an  arc  light  which  sizzled  into  sudden  brilliance 
among  the  maples. 

" '  Tisn't  his  going  that's  such  a  scandal,"  she 
discriminated.  "  All  the  men  run  there.  It's  the 
way  he  goes.  This  is  the  ninth  time  I've  known 
him  to  wait  till  Joe  Milliard  had  left  the  house." 

"  Looks  as  if  he  didn't  dote  on  Joe's  society," 
chuckled  Bowers.  "  I  can't  say  that  I  do  myself." 

"  It's  a  scandal,"  repeated  Mrs.  Bowers,  firmly. 
Her  husband  remaining  indifferent,  she  assumed 


38  THE    HENCHMAN 

her  wifely  prerogative  to  pass  rigorous  judgment 
upon  his  conscience.  "  And  it's  your  plain  duty, 
Seneca  Bowers,  to  speak  to  him." 

The  old  man  flung  off  his  newspaper  with  a 
snort. 

"  What  call  have  I  to  set  up  as  a  censor  of 
public  morals  ?  "  he  demanded  testily.  "  I'm  not 
Shelby's  guardian.  He's  of  age.  He's  cut  his 
eye  teeth.  Talk  sense,  Eliza." 

Mrs.  Bowers  essayed  a  flank  attack. 

"  You're  the  Tuscarora  boss,  aren't  you  ?  " 

"Yes,  I'm  county  leader." 

"  What  you  say  goes  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  so." 

She  pushed  her  Socratic  pitfall  a  step  farther. 

"  When  you  say  run  so-and-so,  he  runs,  doesn't 
he?" 

Bowers  permitted  himself  a  dry  smile  in  the 
dark. 

"  Most  generally." 

"  Then  you're  responsible,"  she  argued  trium- 
phantly. "  You  got  Ross  Shelby  into  politics ; 
you've  run  him  for  this  and  that ;  he's  your 
charge." 

The  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers  turned  his  disgusted 
face  to  the  wall. 

"  So  you've  the  Sunday-school  idea  of  politics," 


THE    HENCHMAN  39 

he  threw  over  his  shoulder  with  heavy  sarcasm. 
"  I'm  to  teach  a  Bible  class  and  pass  out  dinkey 
little  reward-of-merit  cards  to  the  prize  pupils  ! 
Bah ! " 

His  wife  presently  fetched  her  outdoor  wraps 
and  adjusted  them  before  a  mirror  in  the  dimly 
lit  hall. 

"  I'm  going  to  take  a  tumbler  of  jelly  to  poor 
lonely  Mrs.  Weatherwax,"  she  announced  from 
the  door. 

Bowers  roused  suddenly. 

"  I  hope,  Eliza,  you  don't  intend  raking  them 
over  the  coals  with  her,"  he  protested,  rummaging 
for  his  slippers;  but  his  consort  was  beyond  hail. 

A  literal  transcript  of  the  talk  in  progress  over 
the  way  would  have  confounded  the  evil  thinking  ; 
to  illustrate  the  blameless  text  with  an  equally 
faithful  record  of  Shelby's  actions  might  salt  the 
narrative.  He  had  a  lawyer's  perception  of  the 
values  of  words  as  words,  and  through  extended 
practice  with  Mrs.  Hilliard  excelled  in  that  deft 
juggling  of  pregnant  trifles  without  which  Platonic 
friendships  must  die  of  inanition.  He  now 
thanked  the  lady  for  her  successful  coup  at  the 
club  without  specifically  naming  it  —  to  hint  at 
prearrangement  were  too  fatuous  ;  and  Mrs.  Hil- 
liard admired  his  tact.  Parenthetically  she  re- 


40  THE    HENCHMAN 

fleeted  that  Joe  had  no  tact.  Without  specifically 
naming  it,  Shelby  contrived  to  suggest  that  she 
could  do  him  yet  greater  service  by  shepherding 
society  at  his  ratification  meeting. 

"  To  be  significant,  that  sort  of  thing  should  be 
broadly  representative,"  said  he. 

His  words  were  impersonal,  but  there  was  no 
misreading  his  look. 

Mrs.  Hilliard  offered  her  aid  with  equal  thrift 
of  speech  and  prodigality  of  glance.  She  rejoiced 
in  transparent  subtleties.  Joe  was  never  subtle. 

"  But  I've  no  right  to  ask  it  of  you  —  I  don't 
ask  it,"  Shelby  deprecated  with  his  lips. 

"You  have  every  right,  dear  friend,"  she  re- 
assured. "  Friend  !  We  are  more  than  friends, 
you  and  I.  We  are  spiritually  akin.  We  fairly 
speak  without  words." 

"  Exactly."  His  business  despatched,  Shelby 
prepared  to  go.  "  My  time  isn't  my  own  now," 
he  explained.  "  It  belongs  to  the  party." 

"  Selfish  party,"  she  pouted.     "  I  hate  it." 


CHAPTER   V 

BY  the  night  of  the  meeting  it  was  clear  that 
that  bugaboo  of  politicians,  a  general  apathy,  had 
blanketed  the  candidate's  own  community.  Shelby 
should  have  stirred  local  pride.  Not  for  years, 
in  fact  not  since  Bowers  himself  sat  in  Congress, 
had  the  nomination  come  to  Tuscarora  County 
out  of  the  several  counties  which  the  Demijohn 
District  comprised.  Nor  had  the  interval  since 
the  convention  been  a  time  for  folding  of  hands. 
Mrs.  Milliard  rounded  her  social  circle,  rallying 
the  members  of  the  Culture  Club  to  stand  by  their 
own,  and  appealing  to  such  outside  its  membership 
as  seemed  desirable  on  the  ground  of  local  pride. 
Shelby  became  all  things  to  all  men.  To  the 
club  people  he  was  the  Club  Candidate ;  to  the 
unclubbed  townsfolk  he  was  New  Babylon's 
Candidate ;  while  among  the  quarry  workers  and 
other  socially  impossible  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  the 
voting  public  other  agencies  than  Mrs.  Milliard's 
heralded  him  as  the  People's  Candidate.  Yet  the 
fog  of  apathy  refused  to  lift. 

41 


41  THE    HENCHMAN 

There  can  naturally  be  little  of  the  herdlike 
crushing  at  the  doors  of  a  political  gathering  in  the 
country  which  marks  the  urban  rally.  The  rural 
citizen  has  elbow-room  to  take  his  politics  sedately 
and  order  his  going  with  temperate  pulse  and 
judicial  mind.  Of  such  mettle  normally  were  the 
New  Babylonians  who  took  their  leisured  way 
beneath  the  fluted  columns  of  the  court-house  into 
Shelby's  rally ;  but  this  audience  felt  itself  more 
than  normally  temperate  and  judicial.  Despite 
Mrs.  Milliard,  despite  the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers, 
despite  Shelby's  own  striving,  it  had  come  less  to 
encourage  than  to  try  and  weigh. 

The  high  places  were  immutably  fixed.  The 
bench  of  the  courtroom,  surmounted  by  a  pitcher 
of  ice-water  and  adorned  by  crayon  portraits  of 
New  Babylonians  learned  in  the  law,  of  course 
stood  consecrate  to  the  speakers.  The  arm-chairs 
within  the  railed  precinct  set  apart  for  members 
of  the  bar  were  by  unwritten  canon  the  peculiar 
haunt  of  citizens  of  light  and  leading,  while  the 
jury-box  and  its  neighboring  benches  by  custom  im- 
memorial bloomed  with  the  pick  of  feminine  good 
society.  It  was  a  privilege  of  the  socially  elect  to 
enter  such  meetings  at  the  court-house  by  way  of 
the  court's  own  staircase  behind  the  bench,  and  so 
came  Bernard  Graves.  Spying  a  vacant  seat  be- 


THE    HENCHMAN  43 

side  Ruth  Temple,  the  young  man  slipped  into  it 
as  unobtrusively  as  Mrs.  Hilliard's  acute  sense 
of  her  responsibility  as  society's  chief  whip  would 
permit. 

"  The  club  has  responded  nobly,"  she  confided 
in  a  stage  whisper  across  the  intervening  millinery. 
"  That  eccentric  Volney  Sprague  is  positively  the 
only  recreant.  And  isn't  the  audience  representa- 
tive ? " 

She  beamed  impartially  round  upon  the  just 
and  the  unjust  through  her  jewelled  lorgnon. 
Mrs.  Hilliard  rejoiced  in  her  lorgnon.  It 
compensated  fully  for  her  defect  of  vision, 
and  lent  her  a  distinction  which  she  felt  to  be 
wholly  cosmopolitan.  She  aspired  to  be  cosmo- 
politan. 

The  New  Babylon  Brass  Band  fell  lustily  upon 
a  popular  two-step  at  this  moment,  and  an  usher 
thrust  a  bundle  of  campaign  leaflets  into  Graves's 
hands.  One  of  these  pamphlets  contained  a  half- 
tone portrait  of  Shelby,  with  an  account  of  his 
career  and  a  few  phrases  from  the  more  note- 
worthy of  his  public  addresses.  Graves  gave 
these  latter  a  caustic  scrutiny,  and  read  aloud  one 
of  the  italicized  quotations. 

" c  It  has  been  said,  that  Egypt  is  the  gift  of 
the  Nile ;  Tuscarora  County  is  no  less  the  gift 


44  THE   HENCHMAN 

of  the  Erie  Canal ! '  Now  what  can  you  say  of  a 
man  who  couples  those  two  ideas  with  a  sober 
face  ?  He  is  aesthetically  dead." 

"At  least,  he's  enthusiastic,"  smiled  Ruth, 
"  which  is  refreshing  nowadays.  The  canal  is  his 
master  hobby,  the  poetry  of  his  prosaic  existence. 
Mr.  Shelby  is  nothing  if  not  practical." 

"  Offensively  practical." 

"  Practicality  achieves." 

Graves  thought  he  detected  an  implication 
levelled  at  himself,  and  laughingly  accused  her. 

Ruth  made  no  denial. 

"  The  world  weighs  achievement,"  she  returned, 
"  not  barren  cleverness." 

Outwardly  serene,  the  young  man  was  inwardly 
ruffled.  It  was  no  new  thing  for  her  to  reproach 
him  with  napkined  talents,  and  he  was  wont  to 
count  it  as  an  earnest  of  her  liking.  The  novelty 
of  this  situation  lay  in  her  presenting  Shelby  as  a 
pattern  of  fruitfulness,  and  it  irked  him.  The 
agile  leap  of  the  brass  band  from  the  half-finished 
two-step  to  "  Hail  to  the  Chief,"  suddenly  put 
this  out  of  mind,  and  he  watched  the  speakers 
of  the  evening  file  up  the  judge's  staircase  to  the 
rostrum.  With  the  subsidence  of  the  musicians 
the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers  aligned  himself  with  the 
water-pitcher. 


THE    HENCHMAN  45 

"  How  much  he  looks  like  Grant !  "  exclaimed 
Mrs.  Milliard,  with  originality. 

With  soldierly  calm  Bowers  waited  for  the 
applause  to  cease,  and  submitted  a  slated  list  of 
officers  for  the  meeting.  It  was  straightway 
manifest  that  he  had  made  good  his  promise  to 
take  care  of  Dr.  Crandall.  Speech-making  was 
the  breath  of  the  worthy,  if  pompous,  physician's 
nostrils,  and  Bowers  had  shrewdly  judged  that 
to  offer  him  the  chairmanship  would  clinch  his 
wavering  allegiance.  The  crowd  which  always 
relished  his  grandiloquence,  voted  him  into  office 
with  a  shout,  and  cheered  his  soaring  periods  to 
their  peroration.  A  quartet  of  young  voters  now 
proceeded  in  catchy  doggerel  to  laud  the  virtues 
of  the  party  and  the  commanding  genius  of  its 
candidates,  thereby  giving  the  blown  doctor  a 
much-needed  respite.  He  came  up  in  good  form 
presently,  winged  another  flight  with  Shelby's 
name  as  its  climax,  and  while  Mrs.  Hilliard  split 
a  new  pair  of  gloves  in  ineffectual  applause,  the 
candidate  rose  and  faced  his  well-wishers  and  his 
foes. 

"Mr.  Chairman,"  he  began,  "men  and 
women." 

Bernard  Graves  was  surprised  into  approval 
of  his  unexpected  good  taste,  never  dreaming  that 


46  THE    HENCHMAN 

a  chance  remark  of  Ruth's  had  moved  Shelby  to 
discard  the  more  hackneyed  form  of  address. 
Before  ever  he  presented  himself  as  a  candidate 
for  public  office,  Shelby  had  been  rated  in  the 
note-book  of  the  Secretary  of  the  State  Committee 
as  an  effective  speaker  on  "canals,  local  issues, 
and  currency,"  with  the  further  information  that 
he  was  "  strong  in  rural  neighborhoods."  This 
entry  foreshadowed  the  development  of  an  art 
which  he  had  since  rounded  to  high  facility.  He 
was  considered  a  spellbinder  of  uncommon  power. 
"  There  are  some  among  you  who  think  harsh 
things  of  the  way  by  which  the  honor  of  a  con- 
gressional nomination  has  come  to  the  community 
we  love,"  he  went  on  boldly.  "  I  ask  all  such 
—  my  honest  critics,  I  make  no  doubt  —  and  I 
ask  my  avowed  supporters  to  listen  to  a  story. 
It's  an  old  story,  nearly  as  old  as  New  Babylon 
itself,  and  many  of  you  must  have  heard  it  from 
the  honored  lips  of  the  Tuscarora  pioneers  whose 
deeds  it  chronicles.  It  is  a  story  of  our  town 
in  that  rough-hewn  past  before  railroads  were 
dreamed  of,  before  c  Clinton's  Ditch  '  had  touched 
our  wilderness  with  its  mighty  wand  and  made  it 
blossom  like  the  rose.  We  owe  a  vast  debt  to 
De  Witt  Clinton,"  he  digressed  to  add.  "  He 
was  our  Moses,  and  I  can  never  think  upon  his 


THE    HENCHMAN  47 

great  achievement  without  a  thrill  of  gratitude. 
I  confess  to  a  mania  for  the  Erie  Canal." 

A  man  in  the  body  of  the  audience  whom 
Graves  recognized  as  a  canal  bank  watch  whose 
appointment  Shelby  had  brought  about,  called  for 
three-times-three,  but  Shelby  interfered,  saying, 
"  I'd  rather  you'd  listen  than  cheer." 

"  I  speak,"  he  continued,  "  of  New  Babylon 
before  the  coming  of  the  canal  put  an  end  to  the 
log  cabins,  the  spinning-wheels,  the  ox-sleds,  the 
corduroy  roads,  the  miasmatic  swamps,  the  wolves, 
the  bears,  the  fever,  the  ague,  the  blue  pill,  and 
all  the  rude  makeshifts  and  backwoods'  evils 
which  to  your  forefathers  and  mine  were  stern 
reality.  These  were  the  days  when  men  wore 
their  coat  collars  high  in  the  back  and  small 
clothes  were  lengthening  into  trousers ;  when 
veterans  of  the  Revolution  still  walked  the  land 
hale  and  strong,  and  the  second  war  with  the 
mother  country  was  an  uncicatrized  memory.  In 
short,  I  mean  New  Babylon  of  the  critical  hour 
when  the  Legislature  wisely  saw  fit  to  erect  Tus- 
carora  County,  and  appointed  a  commission  to 
choose  a  county-seat.  c  Then  was  the  tug-of-war.' 
New  Babylon  coveted  the  award,  pined  for  it, 
panted  for  it  as  the  hart  for  the  water  brooks. 
But  so  did  Etruria,  our  strapping  rival." 


48  THE    HENCHMAN 

A  ripple  of  appreciation  of  his  version  of  the 
familiar  legend  ran  from  jury-box  to  door,  and 
Shelby,  a  psychologist,  like  every  real  orator, 
perceived  it  with  stirring  pulse.  The  instrument 
he  knew  best  lay  attuned  to  his  hand. 

"  How  little  could  we  boast,"  he  said,  adroitly 
identifying  his  listeners  with  the  past.  "  The 
surveyors  assured  us  that  the  canal  was  pointed 
our  way,  though  no  one  was  sanguine  of  its 
speedy  coming.  We  did  occupy  the  geographical 
centre  of  the  new  county,  and  with  that  ends  the 
tale  of  our  pretensions." 

"  We  had  Penelope  Chubb  !  " 

The  suggestion  came  from  an  old  man  in  one 
of  the  arm-chairs  immediately  below. 

Interruptions  never  disconcerted  Shelby. 

"  I  forgot  Penelope  Chubb,"  he  admitted 
smilingly.  "  Yes,  we  had  her,  the  best  dress- 
maker in  Tuscarora,  whom  even  Etruria  was 
keen  to  employ.  But  you  wouldn't  have  had  us 
offer  Penelope  Chubb  to  the  commissioners  as  an 
inducement,"  he  added,  and  won  a  laugh  for  his 
readiness.  "  It  was  far  different  with  Etruria.  It 
lay  on  the  great  Ridge  Road,  and  the  stages  from 
the  East  tooled  and  trumpeted  straight  through 
its  long  main  street.  It  had  stores  and  shops  and 
factories,  it  had  a  grist-mill,  a  distillery,  a  tavern  —  " 


THE    HENCHMAN  49 

"Two  taverns,"  corrected  the  hoary  critic 
below. 

"  Two  taverns,  a  bona  fide  doctor,  a  licensed 
preacher,  the  only  academy,  the  only  meeting- 
house, the  only  printing-press,  and  the  only 
newspaper  within  the  county  limits.  The  Etru- 
rians were  so  cock-sure  of  victory  that  they  raised 
the  price  of  village  lots.  Yet  we  presumed  to 
hope.  Great  emergencies  focus  on  individuals; 
so  with  ours.  New  Babylon  found  its  saviour  in 
Israel  Booth." 

Booth's  name  was  the  signal  for  an  outburst. 
The  older  generation  held  him  in  equal  reverence 
with  the  fathers  of  the  republic. 

"  It  was  Israel  Booth  who  saw  that  our  one 
hope  lay  in  a  natural  resource,  and  set  himself  to 
conjure  one  from  Red  Jacket  Creek.  Genius  has 
seldom  worked  with  less  promising  material.  Red 
Jacket  Creek  isn't  an  imposing  stream  to-day  as 
it  skirts  our  town,  —  I  am  told  few  of  the  historic 
streams  are  imposing,  —  and  there  was  hardly  more 
of  it  then.  It  yielded  adequate  power  to  run  the 
sawmills  only  during  the  spring  freshets  when  the 
swamps  overflowed,  and  it  was  our  ill  luck  that 
the  legislative  commission  decided  to  visit  Tusca- 
rora  in  dog-days  while  Etruria's  stage  line  was 
doing  a  land-office  business  and  our  poor  little 


50  THE    HENCHMAN 

resource  was  wasted  to  a  long-drawn-out  puddle 
choked  with  cat-tails  and  lily-pads.  But  what 
dismayed  other  men  seemed  to  spur  Israel  Booth, 
and  one  night,  a  bare  fortnight  before  the  com- 
missioners' coming,  his  great  conception  saw  its 
birth.  Before  he  slept  he  took  counsel  with  the 
leading  settlers." 

Shelby  broke  off  to  address  one  of  his  audience. 

"  Your  father  was  in  the  secret,  Mr.  Hewett," 
he  said ;  "  and  yours,  Dr.  Crandall  —  and  my 
grandfather,  and  many  another  upright  citizen." 

The  gentlemen  singled  out  for  reflected  fame 
stirred  consciously  in  the  effort  to  appear  uncon- 
scious. 

"  Now  Red  Jacket  Creek  woke  from  its  sum- 
mer sleep.  The  spiders  in  the  mill  yards  were 
dispossessed ;  lumber  that  had  been  hauled  away 
was  replaced  and  piled  conspicuously ;  the  dams 
and  flumes  were  repaired,  and  the  water-gates 
were  shut ;  the  backwater  began  to  flood  the 
ponds  and  agitate  the  colony  of  frogs  ;  prominent 
men  were  heard  to  pray  for  rain,  and  Israel  Booth 
was  seen  carrying  water  by  night  from  his  well 
to  the  raceway ;  New  Babylon  was  big  with 
mystery.  You  all  know  the  sequel.  You  know 
how  the  commissioners  came  to  us  hungry  from 
Etruria ;  how  Booth  and  his  helpers  met  them  in 


THE    HENCHMAN  51 

Sunday  butternut  and  shirt  frills  without  spot ; 
how  we  flattered  our  visitors'  distinguished  yet 
entirely  human  stomachs  with  the  toothsome 
dishes  of  our  grandmothers ;  how  we  cracked 
dusty  bottles  of  Madeira  brought  years  before 
from  New  England ;  and  how  we  brewed  a  wag- 
gish punch  from  the  output  of  our  rival's  own 
distillery.  You  know  how  they  were  driven 
presently  about  our  cleanly  streets,  every  door- 
yard  raked  spick  and  span  against  their  coming, 
and  were  brought  at  last  to  the  mills.  You  know 
how  the  Red  Jacket,  pent  to  bursting  from  a  pro- 
vidential thunder-storm  of  the  night,  blustered 
down  through  the  race  with  the  pride  of  a 
Danube ;  how  the  saws  sang,  the  logs  rolled, 
the  teamsters  shouted,  and  the  commissioners 
admired.  You  know,  too,  that  the  guests  left 
before  the  waters  abated  or  the  punch-bowl  knew 
drought ;  and  that  by  the  same  token  we  won  our 
fight.  Does  any  of  you  in  his  inmost  heart 
censure  the  pioneers  for  their  stratagem  ?  I 
think  not.  They  worked  with  what  tools  lay 
to  their  hands,  and  the  profit  is  their  children's 
and  their  children's  children's." 

He  wisely  left  it  to  his  listeners  to  point  the 
parallel,  and  turned  to  discuss  the  larger  issues 
of  the  campaign.  His  canvass  chanced  among 


52  THE    HENCHMAN 

one  of  the  several  battles  waged  over  the  national 
currency,  a  thorny  topic  at  best,  but  Shelby  threw 
a  life  into  the  juiceless  principles  of  his  theme 
which  roused  the  dullest.  At  the  last,  referring 
to  the  hardships  a  depreciated  currency  might 
entail  on  the  nation's  pensioners,  he  turned  to 
the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers  as  if  his  Grant-like 
figure  typified  the  great  war's  heroism,  and 
delivered  an  impassioned  eulogy  upon  the  sol- 
dier dead.  It  was  naturally,  convincingly  done, 
and  the  audience  was  loath  to  find  it  his  pero- 
ration. 

There  was  no  doubt  of  his  sweeping  triumph. 
With  its  formal  close  the  meeting  transformed 
itself  spontaneously  into  a  reception,  and,  under 
the  spell  of  his  eloquence  still,  men  prophesied 
that  his  brilliant  career  would  halt  not  short  of 
the  governorship.  Mrs.  Hilliard  would  be  satis- 
fied with  nothing  less  than  the  presidency. 

"  The  world  his  oyster,"  said  Bernard  Graves. 
He  had  pocketed  a  sheaf  of  stenographic  notes, 
with  which  he  had  busied  himself  during  the  latter 
part  of  Shelby's  speech,  and  mounted  a  bench 
with  Ruth,  the  better  to  watch  the  crowd  surge 
round  the  foot  of  the  platform.  "  Shall  we  go 
now  ?  "  he  asked  at  length. 

Ruth  turned  from  the  scene  with  shining  eyes. 


THE    HENCHMAN  53 

"  I  promised  I  would  tell  him  what  I  thought," 
she  answered. 

"  You  promised  Shelby  !  " 

"He  called  the  other  day  —  after  you  had 
gone.  He  talks  well  of  politics.  I  was  interested." 

Bernard  Graves  swallowed  something  unpalat- 
able. 

"  And  the  speech  ?  "  he  said.  "  What  do  you 
think  ?  " 

"  That  it  was  remarkable  —  even  brilliant,  as 
they're  saying." 

"  Great  is  buncombe." 

"  Don't,"  she  begged.  "  Why  spoil  it  for  me  ? 
If  nothing  more,  it  proves  him  a  born  orator,  who 
can  do  what  he  will  with  men.  I  believe  in  him." 

Shelby  approached  them  presently,  with  the 
melting  of  the  throng,  and  Graves  had  to  listen 
to  an  antiphony  of  praise,  sung  by  Ruth  and 
Mrs.  Hilliard.  In  a  lull  he  asked  Shelby  if 
he  admired  the  oratorical  methods  of  General 
Garfield. 

"  Eh  !  "  said  Shelby,  abruptly. 

"  Your  manner  suggests  his  at  times." 

"Yes  —  oh,  yes.  I  see.  Powerful  speaker, 
Garfield.  No  bad  model,  you  know." 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  Graves  answered. 

Shelby  turned  again  to  the  circle  of  women,  and 


54  THE    HENCHMAN 

Graves  left  the  building.  A  few  minutes  later  he 
entered  the  Whig  office  and  made  his  way  to 
Sprague's  cluttered  sanctum. 

"  Volney,"  he  announced,  as  the  editor  peered 
genially  from  underneath  the  green  drop-light, 
"  I  want  to  browse  in  your  file  of  the  Congres- 
sional Record.  And  you've  Garfield's  Works 
down  here,  too,  haven't  you  ?  " 


CHAPTER   VI 

SHELBY  stretched  himself  awake  and  contentedly 
surveyed  his  bachelor  bedroom  in  the  Tuscarora 
House.  He  had  boarded  at  this  establishment 
upward  of  five  years,  and  his  chamber  had  been 
decorated  and,  to  a  degree,  furnished  in  accord 
with  his  notions  of  elegant  comfort.  The  wall 
paper  was  a  pattern  which  William  Morris  and 
his  disciples  would  have  writhed  to  behold,  —  a 
hideous  terra-cotta  ground  overrun  with  meaning- 
less scrolls  and  stiff  garlands  of  roses  of  an 
unearthly  pink.  There  were  stuffy  maroon  lam- 
brequins above  the  window  casements,  and  two 
large  blue  vases,  containing  many-dyed  plumes  of 
pampas  grass,  flanked  like  rigid  sentinels  a  pseudo- 
marble  clock  upon  the  truly  marble  mantelpiece 
which  somehow  suggested  a  mausoleum  falling  to 
decay ;  while  the  blue  motive  was  further  empha- 
sized by  a  plush  photograph  album,  with  a  little 
mirror  let  into  its  cover,  standing  in  a  metallic 
holder  on  the  bureau,  whose  sombre  walnut 
matched  the  bed  and  chairs.  The  pictures  in- 

55 


56  THE    HENCHMAN 

eluded  a  chromo,  depicting  an  impossible  castle 
set  in  an  equally  impossible  landscape,  a  print  or 
two  of  race  horses,  a  lithograph  of  a  poker  game 
in  supposably  high  life,  and  a  photogravure  of  a 
painting  familiar  to  the  habitues  of  a  great  metro- 
politan hotel,  popularly  fancied  in  the  country  to 
be  daring  in  the  extreme.  At  first  sight  of  the 
original,  over  the  rim  of  a  cocktail,  Shelby  had 
been  fired  with  the  resolve  to  own  some  sort  of 
copy,  and  even  now,  after  several  years  of  posses- 
sion, he  esteemed  it  one  of  the  world's  master- 
pieces of  pictorial  art. 

He  dressed  himself  in  the  same  content  which 
had  flushed  his  waking  revery.  The  plaudits  of 
last  night's  mass-meeting  still  rang  harmoniously 
in  his  ears,  and  the  praise  of  Ruth  Temple  and 
Mrs.  Milliard  was  sweeter  in  retrospect  than  it  had 
been  in  reality.  This  happy  serenity  bore  him 
company  through  the  bare  echoing  corridors  of 
the  hotel  to  the  office,  to  be  heightened  by  the 
gratulations  of  the  landlord  and  the  help,  who 
seemed  to  feel  that  a  vicarious  honor  had  been 
done  the  house,  a  most  insinuating  form  of  hero- 
worship  which  attained  its  climax  in  the  homage 
of  the  true-penny  who  set  forth  his  morning  bit- 
ters on  the  bar. 

Extended  notices  of  the  meeting  had  been  tele- 


THE    HENCHMAN  57 

graphed  to  the  neighboring  cities  by  local  corre- 
spondents, and  Shelby  ran  through  the  newspaper 
accounts  in  the  cheerless  dining  room,  which  he 
thought  to-day  by  no  means  comfortless.  There 
was  a  flattering  deference  in  the  manner  of  the 
waitresses,  and  the  lessening  of  their  pert  famili- 
arity told  him,  more  plainly  perhaps  than  anything 
else,  that  he  had  become  a  personage.  He  failed 
to  remind  them  that  the  oatmeal  was  burned,  the 
rolls  soggy,  and  the  coffee  reminiscent  of  chicory. 
He  ate  all  that  was  set  before  him,  and  was  still 
content.  The  hotel  barber-shop  seemed  a  blithe 
spot  indeed,  as  he  sat  for  his  daily  shave,  and  the 
admiring  barber  a  prince  of  good  fellows.  Sweet 
also  were  the  greetings  of  the  market-place,  as, 
cigar  in  mouth,  he  sauntered  through  Main  Street 
to  his  law  office.  All  his  paths  were  pleasantness 
and  peace. 

The  first  discordant  note  was  struck,  oddly 
enough,  by  his  faithful  satellite,  William  Irons, 
who,  at  his  employer's  entrance,  abruptly  left  off 
an  attempt  to  coax  his  red  shock  into  lovelocks, 
slid  his  pocket  mirror  under  a  heap  of  papers, and 
fell  to  hammering  the  typewriter  with  unnatural 
energy.  Shelby  accepted  the  subterfuge,  and 
wished  him  a  hearty  good  morning. 

"  Did  you  attend  the  rally,  William  ? "  he  in- 


58  THE    HENCHMAN 

quired,  as  he  slit  the  envelopes  of  his  morning's 
mail. 

"  Yep,"  said  William  Irons. 

"  Everybody  seemed  pleased  ?  " 

"  Nope." 

"  No  ? "  Shelby  repeated,  lifting  his  eyes. 
"  And  who  was  disgruntled  ?  " 

"  The  Widow  Weatherwax." 

"  Ah  !  That's  unfortunate,"  returned  Shelby, 
blandly.  "  What  is  the  widow's  grievance  ?  " 

"  She's  put  out  because  you  told  a  story  makin' 
light  of  drinkin'  punch.  She  belongs  to  all  the 
temp'rance  societies  doin'  business,  you  know." 

"  No  ;  I  didn't  know." 

"  And  she  says  none  of  her  church  '11  vote  for 
you  after  your  countenancin'  such  a  cryin'  sin." 

"  Her  list  of  cardinal  sins  is  extensive." 

"  Yep,"  agreed  William.  "  Won't  even  let 
me  play  my  fiddle  in  the  house.  Says  it's  a 
vanity." 

"  I'd  forgotten  that  you  had  gone  to  live 
with  her." 

"  Do  chores  for  my  keep,"  explained  the  clerk. 
"  Have  codfish  three  times  a  day,  Monday  morn- 
ing to  Saturday  night,  and  no  warm  victuals  Sun- 
days. Makes  me  keep  my  fiddle  in  the  barn 
and  play  it  behind  the  woodpile." 


THE    HENCHMAN  59 

Shelby  laughed,  and  sought  to  woo  back  his 
mood  of  chanty  toward  all,  but  it  was  futile.  The 
widow's  mite  of  hostile  criticism  had  leavened  the 
whole  lump  with  bitterness.  Nevertheless,  he 
bridled  his  tongue. 

Work  came  hard  for  the  moment,  and  his  eyes 
strayed  past  his  papers  through  an  open  window 
and  spied  Ruth  Temple's  slender  shape  in  the 
lawn  below.  The  dewy  freshness  of  the  morning 
seemed  to  touch  her  youth  as  it  did  the  asters  and 
belated  hollyhocks  of  the  quaint  garden  into  which 
she  passed  as  he  watched.  Then  Bernard  Graves 
suddenly  cut  into  the  picture,  and  drew  a  news- 
paper from  his  pocket,  directing  her  attention  to 
something  which  amused  him.  But  Ruth  did  not 
laugh.  Shelby  clearly  saw  her  color  change. 

A  heavy  step  outside  his  door  heralded  the 
coming  of  the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers.  The  county 
leader  was  in  no  mood  for  idle  words,  and  looked 
as  Grant  may  have  looked  when  about  to  pass 
judgment  on  a  disgraced  soldier. 

"  Seen  the  Whig?  "  he  asked  curtly,  when  Wil- 
liam Irons  had  been  despatched  to  the  post-office. 

"  The  Whig  I  No,   I  don't  take  it." 

"  I'd  advise  you  to  subscribe." 

Shelby's  face  sobered  with  a  premonition  of 
misfortune. 


60  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  What's  to  pay  now  ?  "  he  asked. 

Bowers  struck  open  a  copy  of  Volney  Sprague's 
newspaper,  and  with  stubby  rigid  thumb  guided 
the  candidate's  glance  to  an  editorial. 

"  Read  that,  sir." 

His  tone  was  a  new  thing  in  their  intercourse, 
but  without  remark  Shelby  read  :  — 

"AN   ELOQUENT   THIEF" 

"  Before  a  crowded  mass-meeting  last  evening,  Calvin  Ross 
Shelby,  congressional  candidate  for  the  suffrages  of  an  intelligent 
people,  stultified  alike  his  hearers  and  himself.  We  shall  not 
dignify  his  specious  appeal  to  local  pride  with  the  easy  exposure 
of  its  fallacy;  the  victory  were  too  cheap;  but  since  he  glibly 
sought  to  establish  a  parallel  between  his  own  questionable  polit- 
ical methods  and  the  legendary  deeds  of  the  founders  of  our 
community,  we  too  will  frame  from  his  eloquence  a  parallel 
which  we  commend  to  the  orator  and  to  his  electors.  In  the 
newspaper  business  we  call  it  the  deadly  parallel. 

"Do  you  realize  what  this  "When    you    can    enlarge 

talk  about  the  dollar  means,  if  your     farm    by    changing    the 

true  ?      It   means   that   all   you  figures  in  your    deeds ;     when 

need   do  to  increase   the  acre-  your  dairymaid  can  make  more 

age  of  your  farm  is  to  change  butter  and  cheese  by  watering 

the  figures  in  your  title  deeds ;  the  milk ;   when  you  can  have 

it   means   that   your  creameries  more  cloth  by  decreasing  your 

will    yield   a   better  product  if  yardstick   one-half;   when   you 

you  water  the  milk ;    it  means  can  sell  more  tons  of  merchan- 

that  when  the  housewife  shops  disc  by  shortening  your  pound 

she    will    buy    more    linen,   or  one-half,  —  then,  and  not  until 


THE    HENCHMAN  61 

gingham,  or  calico,  if  the  mer-  then,  can  you  increase  the  value 
chant  moves  the  brass  tacks  of  of  your  property  or   labor  by 

his  counter  yard  measure  nearer  decreasing    your    standard     of 

together.  "  values." 

CALVIN  Ross  SHELBY.  JAMES  ABRAM  GARFIELD, 

Faneuil  Hall,  Boston,  Septem- 
ber 10,  1878. 

"These  fanatics  say  that  if  "But  this  is  the  first  time  I 
foreign  nations  don't  want  the  ever  heard  a  financial  philosopher 
sort  of  money  we  choose  to  express  his  gratitude  that  we 
coin  they  can  go  without,  and  have  a  currency  of  such  bad  re- 
that  we  should  be  glad  that  pute  that  other  nations  will  not 
they  don't.  We've  some  receive  it;  he  is  thankful  that  it 
other  things  that  foreigners  is  not  exportable.  We  have 
don't  want.  We've  peaches  a  great  many  commodities  in 
with  the  yellows,  and  weeviled  such  a  condition  that  they  are 
wheat,  and  rancid  butter,  and  not  exportable.  Mouldy  flour, 
ancient  eggs,  but  I've  yet  to  rusty  wheat,  rancid  butter,  dam- 
meet  a  farmer  who  wants  to  aged  cotton,  addled  eggs,  and 
corner  the  market.  They  spoiled  goods  generally  are  not 
remind  me  of  a  town  that  was  exportable.  But  it  never  oc- 
moved  to  build  a  gallows  curred  to  me  to  be  thankful  for 
because  all  its  neighbors  had  this  putrescence.  It  is  related 
them.  I  don't  need  to  add  in  a  quaint  German  book  of 
that  it  was  not  an  American  humor  that  the  inhabitants  of 
town.  And  one  of  the  wise  Schildeberg,  finding  that  other 
city  fathers  was  so  carried  away  towns,  with  more  public  spirit 
by  his  patriotism  that  he  tried  than  their  own,  had  erected 
to  make  the  council  pass  a  reso-  gibbets  within  their  precincts, 
lution  that  the  gallows  be  resolved  that  the  town  of  Schil- 
reserved  for  that  town' s  inhabit-  deberg  should  also  have  a  gal- 
ants  exclusively. ' '  lows  ;  and  one  patriotic  member 
CALVIN  Ross  SHELBY.  of  the  town  council  offered  a 


62  THE    HENCHMAN 

resolution  that  the  benefits  of 
this  gallows  should  be  reserved 
exclusively  for  the  inhabitants 
ofSchildeberg." 

JAMES  ABRAM   GARFIELD, 

House  of  Representatives,  June 

15,  1870. 

"If  each  grave  had  a  voice  "If  each  grave  had  a  voice 
to  tell  us  what  its  silent  tenant  to  tell  us  what  its  silent  tenant 
last  saw  and  heard  on  earth,  we  last  saw  and  heard  on  earth,  we 
might  stand,  with  uncovered  might  stand,  with  uncovered 
heads,  and  hear  the  whole  story  heads,  and  hear  the  whole  story 
of  the  war.  We  should  hear  of  the  war.  We  should  hear 
that  one  perished  when  the  that  one  perished  when  the  first 
first  great  drops  of  the  crimson  great  drops  of  the  crimson 
shower  began  to  fall,  when  the  shower  began  to  fall,  when  the 
darkness  of  that  first  disaster  at  darkness  of  that  first  disaster  at 
Manassas  fell  like  an  eclipse  on  Manassas  fell  like  an  eclipse  on 
the  nation ;  that  another  died  the  nation ;  that  another  died 
of  disease  while  wearily  waiting  of  disease  while  wearily  waiting 
for  winter  to  end ;  that  this  one  for  winter  to  end  ;  that  this  one 
fell  on  the  field,  in  sight  of  the  fell  on  the  field,  in  sight  of  the 
spires  of  Richmond,  little  dream-  spires  of  Richmond,  little  dream- 
ing that  the  flag  must  be  carried  ing  that  the  flag  must  be  carried 
through  three  more  years  of  through  three  more  years  of 
blood  before  it  should  be  planted  blood  before  it  should  be  planted 
in  that  citadel  of  treason ;  and  in  that  citadel  of  treason  ;  and 
that  one  fell  when  the  tide  of  that  one  fell  when  the  tide  of 
war  had  swept  us  back  till  the  war  had  swept  us  back  till  the 
roar  of  rebel  guns  shook  the  roar  of  rebel  guns  shook  the 
dome  of  the  capitol,  and  re-  dome  of  yonder  capitol,  and  re- 
echoed in  the  chambers  of  the  echoed  in  the  chambers  of  the 
Executive  mansion.  We  should  Executive  mansion.  We  should 


THE    HENCHMAN  63 

hear  mingled  voices  from  the  hear  mingled  voices  from  the 
Rappahannock,  the  Rapidan,  the  Rappahannock,  the  Rapidan,  the 
Chickahominy,  and  the  James,  Chickahominy,  and  the  James, 
solemn  voices  from  the  Wilder-  solemn  voices  from  the  Wilder- 
ness, and  triumphant  shouts  from  ness,  and  triumphant  shouts  from 
the  Shenandoah,  from  Peters-  the  Shenandoah,  from  Peters- 
burg, and  the  Five  Forks,  min-  burg,  and  the  Five  Forks,  min- 
gled with  the  wild  acclaim  of  gled  with  the  wild  acclaim  of 
victory  and  the  sweet  chorus  of  victory  and  the  sweet  chorus  of 
returning  peace."  returning  peace." 

CALVIN  Ross  SHELBY.  JAMES  ABRAM  GARFIELD, 

Arlington,  Va.,  May  30,  1868. 

"  Of  these  three  passages,  rightly  thought  by  Calvin  Ross 
Shelby's  audience  the  most  telling  of  his  speech,  the  first  and 
second  are  unmistakably  plagiarisms  of  ideas,  while  the  third, 
differing  from  its  original  in  but  one  telltale,  damning  word,  is 
shameless,  flat-footed  theft.  Either  of  the  first  two  offences 
committed  singly  might  be  unconscious  ;  conjoined  they  betray 
deliberation;  united  with  the  third  they  'smell  to  heaven.' 
It  is  high  time  for  the  voters  of  this  congressional  district  to  ask 
themselves  the  question,  Shall  we  vote  for  a  thief?  " 

"  Well,  sir,  well  ?  "  exploded  Bowers  at  last. 

Shelby  tossed  the  paper  aside  with  a  laugh. 

"  It's  well  done." 

"  Well  done  !  "  Bowers  dropped  one  of  his 
infrequent  oaths.  "  Have  you  nothing  else  to 
say  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  it's  true,  more  or  less." 

"  You  admit  it  ?  " 


64  THE   HENCHMAN 

"  Keep  cool.  It  was  this  way :  I  was  pressed 
for  time  when  I  prepared  my  speech,  —  you  know 
that,  —  and  it  occurred  to  me  to  adapt  one  or  two 
of  Garfield's  illustrations.  I've  studied  him  some, 
and  he  said  many  things  that  fit  in  nowadays  as 
well  as  they  ever  did.  Plenty  of  speakers  quarry 
there  I  guess.  I  honestly  meant  to  give  him  the 
credit  of  that  soldier  business  in  my  peroration, 
but  somehow  the  quotation  marks  were  lost  in  the 
shuffle.  There  was  but  one  chance  in  a  thousand 
that  anybody  would  notice." 

"  Somebody  did,"  growled  Bowers,  and  spat  out 
his  mangled  cigar. 

"  Yes  ;   I  ran  against  a  man  with  a  memory." 

"  It  wasn't  on  the  square,  Ross.    It'll  hurt  you." 

Shelby  eyed  him  shrewdly. 

"You  read  speeches  in  Washington  that  I 
wrote,"  he  reminded. 

"  That's  different.  Lots  of  congressmen  do 
that,  —  even  senators.  They  're  not  posted  on 
everything." 

"  No,"  Shelby  agreed,  with  an  irony  too  subtle 
for  Bowers  ;  "  they  certainly  are  not.  However, 
there  s  no  need  to  borrow  trouble  over  this  thing. 
People  will  laugh  a  little,  say  it  was  a  good  speech, 
wherever  I  got  it,  and  vote  the  straight  party 
ticket  despite  Bernard  Graves." 


THE    HENCHMAN  65 

"  Graves,"  said  Bowers.  "  What  has  he  to  do 
with  it  ? " 

"  Everything ;  he's  the  little  joker  with  the 
memory." 

Bowers  whistled. 

"  What  is  he  after  ?  " 

Shelby  jerked  his  head  toward  the  Temple  door- 
step where  Bernard  still  lingered. 

"  After  her." 


CHAPTER   VII 

"  HUMOR  a  silk  stocking  according  to  his 
crotchet,  that 's  my  maxim/'  submitted  Bowers  as 
they  threshed  the  matter  out  in  its  latest  aspect. 

"  I  can't  see  its  application  to  Graves.  He's 
outside  politics ;  hates  the  very  name,  they  say." 

"  Practical  politics  is  applied  human  nature. 
If  a  rule  is  sound  in  politics,  it  will  work  anywhere 
this  side  of  the  pearly  gates.  Graves  may  not  care 
a  tinker's  dam  for  politics,  but  evidently  he  does 
get  queasy  when  another  man's  ideas  are  misap- 
propriated. Perhaps  that's  his  crotchet.  Writes 
himself,  doesn't  he  ?  " 

"  Some  rubbish  or  other,"  returned  Shelby, 
contemptuously. 

"  That's  where  he  is  susceptible,  to  my  thinking. 
I  don't  cotton  to  your  woman  theory.  I  say 
leave  women  out  of  politics.  So  conciliate  him ; 
humor  his  crotchet." 

"  I  can't  see  why  I  should  kotow  to  him,  or 
what  further  harm  he  can  do,"  said  the  candidate, 
but  he  deferred  to  Bowers'sjudgment.  "  I'll  look 

66 


THE    HENCHMAN  67 

him  up  this  afternoon,"  he  agreed  ;  "  though  I've 
no  stomach  for  the  job.  I  never  liked  the  cuss." 

He  abundantly  appreciated  this  long-standing 
antipathy  as  he  cast  about  for  some  common 
ground  of  interest  in  the  little  reception-room  of 
the  house  shared  by  Bernard  Graves  and  his 
mother.  It  seemed  to  the  waiting  caller  a  drab 
and  lifeless  home,  uninteresting  in  its  appoint- 
ments, and  out  of  keeping  with  the  wealth  known 
to  have  been  inherited  by  the  widow  and  her  son. 
The  young  man's  study  was  visible  down  the  vista 
of  a  series  of  low-ceiled  apartments,  and  Shelby 
saw  that  it  was  crammed  with  books.  None  of  the 
many  pictures  could  cope  in  dash  and  color  with  his 
own  collection  and,  what  seemed  to  him  singular  in  a 
Protestant  home,  they  were  chiefly  of  the  Madonna; 
all  in  all,  a  tame  assortment  beside  his  copy  of  the 
secular  masterpiece  in  the  great  metropolitan  hotel. 
Over  one  of  the  crowded  bookcases  was  the  cast 
of  a  winged  woman.  It  was  armless  and  headless, 
and  Shelby  wondered  by  what  accident  it  had  be- 
come so  damaged,  and  why  it  was  not  banished  to 
the  attic. 

The  maid  came  presently  to  tell  him  that  Mr. 
Bernard  had  gone  for  a  walk  to  the  golf  links. 

Shelby  was  relieved.  He  felt  ill  at  ease  in  this 
queer  drab  dwelling,  and  doubtful  of  the  course  he 


68  THE    HENCHMAN 

ought  to  pursue  with  its  tenant.  It  would  be 
another  matter  altogether  in  the  open  air.  Return- 
ing to  his  law  office,  he  bade  William  Irons  to 
telephone  the  Tuscarora  House  livery-stable  to 
send  around  his  horse  and  buggy. 

At  the  farm-house  on  the  outskirts  which  served 
the  golf  devotees  for  a  headquarters  Shelby  was 
told  that  Graves  had  gone  yet  farther,  taking  the 
direction  of  the  Hilliard  quarries  —  geologizing 
bent,  the  speaker  thought.  Unassociated  with 
practical  results,  this  had  always  presented  itself 
to  Shelby  as  a  trivial  pursuit  akin  to  botany, 
embroidery,  and  other  employments  distinctly 
feminine.  He  forebore  comment,  however,  and 
presently  struck  down  a  road  which  wound  into  a 
little  suburb  peopled  by  Polish  quarry-workers. 
It  was  essentially  an  alien  community  in  whose 
straggling  streets  and  lanes  one  heard  English  but 
seldom.  Tow-headed  children,  shy  elves  peeping 
from  odd  hiding-places,  swarmed  a  half-dozen  and 
upward  to  a  house.  Work  was  the  key-note  of 
Little  Poland,  as  it  was  called.  While  the  men 
toiled  in  the  sandstone  quarries  the  women  did  a 
man's  stint  in  the  fields  of  the  outlying  farms,  and 
bore  more  children.  Childbirth  was  a  mere  detail 
in  these  thick-waisted  women's  lives  ;  some  hours, 
a  day  perhaps,  and  they  were  stooping  in  the  fields 


THE    HENCHMAN  69 

again.  And  the  children  early  put  shoulder  to 
the  wheel ;  those  too  small  for  the  fields  begged 
food  in  the  streets  of  the  town.  Little  Poland 
was  virtually  a  fief  of  Joe  Hilliard's.  Men, 
women,  and  elves  looked  up  to  him  as  to  a 
benevolent  feudal  lord,  and  the  naturalized  males 
voted  Joe  Hilliard's  party  ticket  with  mechanical 
precision. 

The  politician  approached  the  quarries  with  an 
interested  eye.  Among  his  many  irons  in  the  fire 
he  had  acquired  part  ownership  in  another  quarry 
to  the  westward,  like  this  bordering  the  towpath 
of  the  canal.  Bowers  held  the  controlling  interest, 
though  neither  his  name  nor  Shelby's  figured 
prominently  in  its  management.  They  called  it 
the  Eureka  Sandstone  Company. 

Shelby  tied  his  horse  near  the  office,  and,  put- 
ting his  head  among  the  morning-glories  curtain- 
ing an  open  window,  stated  his  errand  to  Milliard, 
whose  vast  bulk  was  humped  ludicrously  upon  a 
high  stool.  The  big  fellow  stopped  thumbing 
his  ledger,  greeted  him  with  a  jovial  shout,  and 
directed  him  toward  a  stratum  of  rock  which  the 
workmen  had  recently  unearthed. 

"  Look  it  over,"  he  called  after  him.  "  It 
promises  to  pan  out  scrumptious.  We  struck 
A- 1  rock  seven  feet  below  the  surface." 


70  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  That  discounts  the  Eureka,"  said  Shelby. 
"  We've  never  done  better  than  twelve." 

He  picked  his  way  through  the  yards,  the  ham- 
mers of  the  stone  dressers  clinking  out  a  not 
unmusical  chorus  from  every  shed,  and  skirting 
the  docks  where  the  ponderous  cranes  swung  the 
great  slabs  to  the  canal  boats,  scrambled  down  a 
rough  roadway  into  the  quarry  proper  amidst  all 
the  hurly-burly  of  the  teamsters  and  the  hoarse 
steam  drills.  The  walls  of  sandstone  rose  sheer 
around  him,  sliced  down  by  the  blasts  like  sugar 
with  a  scoop.  Some  of  the  formation  was  not 
unlike  sugar  little  refined ;  some,  lighter,  with 
streaks  of  grayish  pink,  like  sides  of  bacon ;  and 
some,  a  rich  deep  brown  which  architects  speci- 
fied the  country  over,  was  said  to  have  no  equal 
the  world  around  save  only  in  Japan.  In  the 
newly  uncovered  tract  Shelby  spied  Bernard 
Graves  pecking  about  with  a  little  hammer. 

"  Prospecting  for  gold  ?  "  he  asked  jocularly 

"No;  fucoids." 

"  Eh  ?  " 

"  Fossils,  you  know  ;  a  sort  of  seaweed.  The 
only  kind  we  can  discover  in  this  formation." 

"  My  little  freshwater  college  wasn't  strong  on 
the  sciences,"  said  Shelby,  speculating  whether 
this  particular  crotchet  required  humoring.  As 


THE    HENCHMAN  71 

the  young  man's  own  interest  in  the  topic  seemed 
languid,  he  decided  against  this  course  and  frankly 
told  him  that  he  wanted  to  talk  with  him.  "  Sup- 
pose we  move  away  from  the  clatter  of  the  drills," 
he  suggested. 

Graves  assented,  and  they  shifted  from  beneath 
the  overhanging  bank  of  sandy  loam  to  the  shade 
of  an  unused  derrick. 

"  Smoke  ?  "  queried  the  politician,  affably. 

Graves  declined  a  cigar,  explaining,  "  I  merely 
take  a  cigarette  now  and  then,  usually  after  dinner." 

Shelby's  contempt  for  cigarettes  was  boundless, 
but  he  dissembled  his  opinion,  and  lit  the  strongest 
cigar  in  his  case. 

"  It's  up  to  me,  Bernard,"  he  confessed  with  a 
laugh.  "  It's  my  move,  and  I'm  right  on  the  spot 
like  a  little  man,  though  humble  pie  isn't  my 
favorite  tidbit  by  a  large  majority." 

"  Meaning  what  ?  "  asked  Graves,  without  ani- 
mation. 

Behind  the  candidate's  urbane  mask  rioted  a 
lust  to  mar  and  maim,  but  his  political  self 
explained  blandly :  — 

"  Meaning  that  your  checkmate  in  this  morn- 
ing's Whig  was  well  played." 

"  I  didn't  write  that  editorial." 

"  I    know    you    didn't.     It   had    the  Volney 


72  THE    HENCHMAN 

Sprague  earmarks.  But  you  did  what  is  more 
important,  —  you  inspired  it." 

"Well?" 

"  Just  this :  in  a  general  way  I  admit  its  justness, 
and  come  frankly  to  tell  you  so." 

"  Why  should  you  trouble  yourself?  " 

Shelby  throttled  his  mounting  ire. 

"  Because,"  he  returned  slowly,  "  I  recognize 
your  ability  and  want  your  support.  If  you 
mean  to  interest  yourself  in  politics,  I  can  be  of 
service  to  you.  I  know,  of  course,  you  don't 
think  politicians  are  necessarily  scamps." 

"  I  judge  no  class  of  men  so  summarily," 
Graves  opened  his  mouth  to  protest.  "  That  is 
too  much  like  Burke's  indictment  against  a  whole 
people,  you  know." 

The  allusion  was  not  familiar,  but  Shelby  said, 
"  Exactly,"  with  labored  calm.  He  fancied  that 
he  detected  a  note  of  condescension,  and  resented 
it  passionately. 

"The  average  politician  isn't  such  a  bad  lot," 
he  went  on.  "  His  methods  don't  always  square 
with  the  Decalogue,  but  he  means  well,  and  in  the 
long  run  does  well.  I  don't  say  this  to  pat  myself 
on  the  back.  You  know  me.  I'm  a  plain,  prac- 
tical man,  and  try  to  steer  by  common-sense.  If 
I'm  elected  to  Congress,  I'll  do  my  best  to  make 


THE    HENCHMAN  73 

the  district  proud  of  me,  and  I'll  promise  you 
personally,  right  here  and  now,  that  I  will  deliver 
no  man's  speeches  but  my  own." 

Graves  wished  that  he  would  make  an  end  of 
his  excuses  and  go  away.  The  whole  episode 
bored  him,  and  his  mind  wandered  even  while  he 
listened.  He  was  thinking  that  that  muscular 
Pole  directing  the  planting  of  a  steam  drill  below 
the  sand-bank  a  rather  statuesque  figure  for  these 
prosaic  days.  The  man  had  jumped  upon  the 
tripod  of  the  drill  in  ordering  the  work,  and 
loomed  large  and  competent.  Graves  thought 
him  in  feature  not  unlike  his  great  compatriot 
John  Sobieski,  and  tried  to  picture  him  in  the 
Polish  king's  armor  which  he  remembered  to 
have  seen  in  some  European  collection.  Shelby's 
silence  recalled  him. 

"  Really,  there's  no  necessity  for  you  to  ex- 
plain or  promise  anything  to  me,"  he  rejoined 
coldly.  "  I'm  not  in  politics,  and  I  don't  care 
to  be." 

Shelby  had  reached  his  last  ditch. 

"You  think  you're  too  damned  good  for  it," 
he  broke  out.  "  It's  the  lily-fingered  people  of 
your  stripe  who  make  reform  a  byword  and  a 
laughing-stock." 

Graves's  face  flamed,  and  he  shrank  inwardly 


74  THE    HENCHMAN 

with  a  scholar's  repugnance  from  the  rencounter. 
Outwardly,  however,  he  was  truculent. 

"  Such  bar-room  personalities  are  characteristic 
of  you,"  he  retorted.  "Your  place  —  " 

But  it  was  fated  that  Shelby  should  not  learn 
his  place.  A  sharp  warning  cry  from  a  work- 
man heralded  the  crumbling  fall  of  a  great  section 
of  the  bank  overhanging  the  drill  which  Graves 
had  idly  watched,  and,  as  idly,  watched  still.  A 
dreamer  of  habit,  his  will  failed  immediately  to 
rally  to  the  naked  fact  and  its  demands.  It  was 
unreal,  a  picture,  a  play,  a  poet's  conception  of 
chaos  —  that  was  it !  The  thing  was  Dantesque 
or  Miltonic.  The  gaping  rent,  the  jumbled  rocks, 
the  thick  spurt  of  steam  issuing  from  the  buried 
drill,  it  was  all  tumultuous,  primeval;  and  that 
grimy  workman,  heaving  aside  the  dirt  and 
scrambling  to  the  air,  was  suggestive  of  Milton's 
earth-born  "tawny  lion,  pawing  to  get  free." 

"  Good  God,  man,  wake  up  !  "  Shelby  shook 
him  roughly  by  the  arm  and  dragged  him  toward 
the  scene  of  the  catastrophe.  "  There  are  men 
under  that  heap." 

A  little  knot  of  Polish  laborers  forthwith  con- 
gregated, ox-eyed  and  inert.  Shelby  tore  a  shovel 
from  a  paralyzed  hand  and  began  to  dig,  ripping 
out  crisp  oaths  at  their  stupidity. 


THE    HENCHMAN  75 

"  Find  shovels  for  these  cattle,"  he  commanded. 

By  signs  Graves  roused  the  unnerved  men  to 
action,  but  he  could  find  no  sort  of  tool  for  him- 
self, and  stood  empty-handed  apart,  conscious  of 
unfitness.  The  politician,  burrowing  like  a  wood- 
chuck,  showered  him  with  red  earth. 

"  English  ?  Anybody  speak  English  ?  "  he 
panted  without  stopping.  "  How  many  are 
under  here  ?  " 

One  of  the  workmen  understood,  chattered 
excitedly  with  his  fellows,  and  held  up  one  soiled 
finger. 

"  Ein,"  he  said.     "  Kiska,  he  vork  here." 

Shelby's  shovel  grated  on  the  cylinder  of  the 
buried  drill.  From  underneath  its  tripod  pro- 
truded the  booted  leg  of  a  man. 

"  Go  easy,  boys,"  he  cautioned. 

With  his  own  hands  he  skilfully  uncovered  the 
victim's  head  and  trunk.  Graves  saw  that  it  was 
the  giant  of  his  day-dream.  The  man's  rugged 
face  was  earth-stained  and  still;  his  great  chest 
motionless.  Shelby  mastered  the  situation  with  a 
glance,  thrust  his  hand  into  the  coarse  shirt,  and 
felt  for  the  heart. 

"There's  life  in  him,"  he  announced.  "Over 
with  him  into  the  shade."  Between  them  all  they 
bore  him  to  a  shelf  of  level  rock.  "  Off  with  his 


76  THE    HENCHMAN 

shirt,"  said  Shelby  to  his  helper,  and  they  two 
stripped  the  body  to  the  waist.  It  was  the  torso 
of  a  gladiator.  Shelby  rolled  the  garment  and 
thrust  it  underneath  the  bare  back  below  the 
shoulders.  "  It's  not  high  enough,"  he  decided 
instantly.  "  Something  else  —  a  coat  —  anything." 

Kiska's  compatriots  could  not  have  complied 
had  they  understood,  being  coatless  to  a  man. 
Bernard  Graves  took  off  a  new  golf  coat  which 
Shelby  ruthlessly  crumpled  and  stuffed  into  place. 
An  instant  later  he  was  astride  the  Pole's  hips, 
his  hands  grasping  the  powerful  chest  on  either 
side.  Bracing  his  elbows,  Shelby  bore  his  whole 
weight  forward,  counted  three,  sat  back  upon  his 
knees,  counted  two,  and  so  continued,  down 
<c  one-two-three,"  up  "  one-two,"  with  the  quiet 
assurance  of  a  surgeon. 

The  younger  man  watched  his  every  move- 
ment with  wondering  respect.  The  operator 
interrupted  his  meditations. 

"  Get  hold  of  his  tongue  with  your  handker- 
chief," he  ordered.  "That's  right  —  hold  it  by 
the  tip.  On  one  side  —  on  one  side.  Now  take 
both  his  wrists  and  pin  them  above  his  head  — 
so." 

All  the  while  the  steady  pressure  and  relaxation 
went  on,  compelling  the  lungs  to  their  function. 


THE    HENCHMAN  77 

Presently  came  the  faintest  quiver  of  a  nostril, 
and  Shelby  smiled. 

"  Kiska  will  do  his  own  breathing  pretty  soon," 
he  said.  Presently  he  suggested :  "  Better  fetch 
Hilliard  now.  And  have  him  'phone  Doc  Cran- 
dall  to  come  to  Kiska's  house  in  Little  Poland. 
I'll  take  Kiska  home  in  my  rig  when  his  bellows 
gets  well  under  way." 

Graves  did  his  errand,  outlining  the  disaster 
and  rescue  as  he  hurried  with  the  quarry  owner 
to  the  scene.  Joe  Hilliard  was  divided  between 
sympathy  for  Kiska,  whom  he  declared  was  the 
pick  of  his  men,  and  admiration  for  Shelby's 
presence  of  mind. 

"  He's  got  gumption,  that  man,"  he  exclaimed, 
"  gumption,  simon-pure." 

Graves's  own  impressions  were  mixed,  and  the 
stress  of  the  accident  passed,  he  resumed  his 
ruined  coat  with  a  vague  sense  of  personal  slight. 
Something  of  this  sort  prompted  him  to  say 
rather  patronizingly  to  Shelby  as  they  parted  :  — 

"You  made  skilful  use  of  that  method  of 
resuscitation.  Where  in  the  world  did  you  pick 
it  up  ? " 

"  Every  schoolboy  knows  it,"  returned  the 
politician,  shortly;  "or  every  schoolboy  should." 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SHELBY'S  forecast  of  the  effect  of  the  Whigs 
exposure  was  brilliantly  fulfilled.  People  did 
laugh  over  it  and  say  that  it  was  a  good  speech, 
whatever  its  source.  In  popular  conception 
literary  theft  is  at  worst  a  venial  sin  whose  very 
iniquity  is  doubtful  unless  found  out.  The  cul- 
prit's average  fellow-townsman  accepted  the  in- 
cident as  fresh  evidence  of  his  acknowledged 
cleverness  and  promptly  forgot  it  in  the  nine  days' 
wonder  over  his  exploit  at  the  Milliard  quarries. 

The  town's  attitude  mirrored  that  of  the 
congressional  district  and  the  state.  Volney 
Sprague's  editorial  occasioned  some  little  para- 
graphing here  and  there  among  up-state  news- 
papers and  by  brief  mention  in  Associated  Press 
despatches  roused  a  metropolitan  daily  of  opposite 
political  faith  to  one  of  the  satirical  thrusts  for 
which  it  was  famous ;  whereupon  one  of  its  more 
serious  contemporaries  found  a  text  for  a  thun- 
derous jeremiad  on  the  decay  of  political  morality. 
Yet  where  one  person  read  of  Shelby's  plagiarism, 

78 


THE    HENCHMAN  79 

a  score  devoured  the  sensational  accounts  of  his 
rescue  of  Kiska,  while  of  those  who  read  both,  an 
illogical  but  human  majority  considered  his  atone- 
ment complete. 

Sprague  himself  was  disposed  to  gauge  Shelby's 
vogue  with  the  groundlings  as  greater  than  before, 
and  lamented  it  to  Bernard  Graves,  who  fell  wholly 
into  his  mood  for  once  and  deplored  the  fatuity 
of  popular  judgment  with  unlooked-for  warmth. 

His  friend  listened  with  unqualified  approval. 

"  Thank  Heaven,  you're  beginning  to  take  an 
interest  in  politics  !  "  he  exclaimed. 

The  young  man  flushed. 

"  There  are  some  things  in  this  man's  canvass 
one  can't  ignore,"  he  carefully  explained,  and  tried 
to  think  he  meant  plagiarism. 

He  had  not  discussed  recent  happenings  with 
Ruth  Temple.  When  he  took  her  the  Whig 
article  the  morning  after  the  mass-meeting  she 
had  displayed  a  disconcerting  willingness  to  cloud 
the  vital  fact  and  excuse  Shelby.  Indeed,  he 
finally  left  with  the  disgusted  conviction  that  she 
had  pilloried  not  the  sinner  but  himself,  —  a  not 
uncommon  outcome  in  a  clash  of  wits  between  a 
woman  and  a  man.  After  that,  he  told  himself, 
she  might  form  what  fantastic  opinion  of  this 
freebooter  she  chose  without  let  or  hindrance 


8o  THE    HENCHMAN 

from  him,  and  at  the  same  time  he  resolved  that 
she  should  see  less  of  him.  The  latter  resolution 
proved  as  flimsy  as  a  New  Year's  vow,  but  while 
it  needed  less  than  a  smile  to  whistle  him  back, 
the  whole  distasteful  subject  of  Shelby  became 
tacitly  taboo. 

As  Ruth  was  a  very  woman,  often  saying  less 
what  she  really  thought  than  what  she  knew 
would  stir  dissent,  her  innermost  opinions  were 
less  stable  than  he  fancied.  She  had  not  had 
speech  with  Shelby  since  the  mass-meeting,  but 
he  had  found  time  that  night  to  ask  her  to  drive 
with  him,  and  she  anticipated  the  outing  with  a 
zest  whose  disproportion  to  its  surface  cause  she 
did  not  analyze. 

On  the  appointed  afternoon  she  saw  his  horse 
and  buggy  brought  from  the  Tuscarora  House 
and  hitched  at  the  curb  below  his  office,  and  as  it 
lacked  little  of  the  hour  set  she  thrust  home  the 
last  hat-pin  and  stood  jacketed  and  gloved  by  a 
window,  waiting  his  coming.  The  hour  struck 
and  brought  no  Shelby,  though  punctuality  was 
the  first  article  of  his  creed.  Out  in  the  drowsy 
thoroughfare  a  sprinkling-cart  jarred  heavily  past, 
spurting  ineffectually  at  the  yellow  dust  which 
rose  perversely  under  its  baptism  and  surged 
beneath  the  awnings  of  the  shops.  It  was  Satur- 


THE    HENCHMAN  81 

day,  universal  shopping-day  in  the  farmland,  and 
a  ramshackle  line  of  rustic  vehicles  —  buggies, 
democrats,  sulkies,  lumber  wagons  —  with  grace- 
less plough  horses  slumbering  in  the  thills, 
stretched  in  ragged  alignment  down  the  curb. 
Shelby's  smart  turnout  seemed  fairly  urban  by 
contrast,  and  Ruth  saw  that  it  met  with  the 
critical  approval  of  the  loungers. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  slipped  by ;  no  Shelby. 
His  cob  fretted  at  the  autumn  flies  and  whinnied 
to  be  gone.  A  half-hour  elapsed,  unfruitful ;  an 
hour.  Then  did  Queen  Ruth,  on  whose  impe- 
rious nod  a  little  world  had  hung  from  babyhood, 
perceive  the  recreant  come  calmly  down  from  his 
law  office  in  company  with  some  creature  of  rela- 
tively common  clay,  shake  hands,  chat  further, 
shake  hands  again,  take  up  his  reins  amid  an 
interchange  of  badinage  with  the  bystanders,  and 
so,  gossiping  still,  jog  deliberately  on  —  to  her  ! 

She  spun  on  her  heel  as  he  turned  in  at  the 
drive  and  rang  for  her  maid. 

"  If  Mr.  Shelby  should  call,"  she  directed, 
wrenching  at  her  gloves,  "say  I'm  not  at  home." 

Shelby's  occupations  in  the  meantime  had  been 
absorbing.  In  the  course  of  an  earnest  confer- 
ence at  the  Tuscarora  House  the  evening  of  the 


82  THE   HENCHMAN 

quarry  accident,  the  Hon.  Samuel  Bowers  had 
removed  his  cigar  to  let  fall  a  sententious  obser- 
vation. 

"  As  long  as  an  all-wise  Providence  saw  fit  to 
dump  that  sand-bank  on  one  of  the  Polacks," 
said  he,  "  I  call  it  a  piece  of  downright  Ross 
Shelby  luck  that  it  fell  on  Kiska." 

"  I  should  have  worked  as  hard  over  a  dago," 
rejoined  Shelby ;  "  or  a  dog  either,  I  guess." 

"M-yes  ;  I  reckon.  But  you're  not  complain- 
ing that  it  wasn't  some  dago  who  doesn't  know  a 
ballot  from  a  bunch  of  garlic  ?  No,  I  reckon 
not."  His  eyes 'twinkled,  and  Shelby  flickered  a 
responsive  grin.  "  Note  a  rule  for  candidates : 
When  about  to  effect  the  spectacular  rescue  of 
one  of  the  toiling  masses  which  are  the  bone  and 
sinew  of  this  fair  land  of  ours,  pick  a  man  who 
holds  a  block  of  the  foreign  vote  right  in  the 
pocket  of  his  jeans." 

It  was  perhaps  appreciation  of  this  aphorism's 
significance,  perhaps  sheer  abundance  of  the  milk 
of  human  kindness,  perhaps  a  harmonious  blend- 
ing of  both,  which  inspired  Shelby's  warm  wel- 
come to  Kiska  as  he  was  about  to  leave  his  office 
to  join  Ruth  Temple. 

"  You  shouldn't  have  come  out  so  soon,  Kis- 
ka," he  protested,  urging  the  big  Pole  to  a  chair, 


THE    HENCHMAN  83 

and  bringing  him  a  glass  of  water.  "  Did  you 
walk  all  the  way  from  Little  Poland  to  see  me  ? " 

"  I  valked,"  answered  Kiska,  simply,  his  face 
working.  "  I  vould  like  to  haf  roon,  Meester 
Shelby." 

"  Oh,  I  wouldn't  run  much  just  yet,"  laughed 
Shelby,  kindly,  trying  to  head  off  the  man's 
expression  of  gratitude.  "  Have  another  drink  ? 
Perhaps  you'd  prefer  some  whiskey  ?  " 

Kiska  declined,  and  harked  back  to  his  message. 

"  I  vould  like  to  haf  roon  to  tank  you,  Mees- 
ter Shelby.  I  got  vife  to  tank  you.  I  got  mooch 
cheeldren  to  tank  you.  I  no  taalk  good.  Dat 
Eengleesh  hard,  —  so  ?  Eef  I  no  taalk,  I  tink.  I 
tink  all  day:  Tank  you,  Meester  Shelby,  tank 
you,  Meester  Shelby." 

"  You  speak  English  very  well,"  said  Shelby, 
patting  him  on  the  shoulder.  "  But  you  mustn't 
say  any  more  about  the  matter." 

He  led  him  presently  to  talk  of  the  quarry- 
workers  and  their  families,  their  wages,  their 
hours,  their  recreation,  their  parish  church,  their 
priest,  their  school  ;  for  Little  Poland  was  suffi- 
cient unto  itself;  and  Kiska  saw  that  he  ques- 
tioned with  sympathy  and  understanding,  and  was 
pleased.  On  the  dial  of  his  office  clock  Shelby 
noted  the  hour  of  his  appointment  come  and  go, 


84  THE    HENCHMAN 

and  from  his  window  he  caught  a  fleeting  glimpse 
of  Ruth  at  hers.  She  wore  his  favorite  hat,  with 
a  gleam  of  red,  which  became  her  dark  hair  so 
well,  and  he  divined  that  she  had  put  it  on  be- 
cause of  him.  He  longed  to  be  out  and  away 
with  her  between  the  autumn  hedgerows,  but 
there  sat  Kiska,  garrulous  of  Poland  over  seas 
and  Little  Poland  by  the  quarries,  and  to  Kiska 
the  politician  inclined  a  patient  ear. 

The  Pole  rose  at  last,  after  a  delighted  hour, 
and  Shelby  saw  his  eye  light  on  a  package  of  cam- 
paign lithographs  of  himself,  which  had  come  that 
morning  from  the  printers. 

"  Want  one  ?  "  he  asked. 

Kiska  exploded  in  incoherent  gratitude. 

"  Take  several,"  said  Shelby,  snapping  an 
elastic  band  around  a  sheaf  of  the  pictures.  "  Give 
'em  to  your  friends  to  hang  in  their  front  win- 
dows. That's  what  we  do  with  'em  in  town,  you 
know.  It's  American.  You're  all  good  Ameri- 
cans in  Little  Poland,  aren't  you  ?  "  A  thought 
struck  him,  and  from  a  roll  of  banknotes,  destined 
for  campaign  uses,  he  extracted  a  ten-dollar  bill. 
"  I  dare  say  Joe  Milliard  will  pay  your  doctor, 
Kiska,"  he  went  on,  "  but  there'll  be  other  things 
you'll  want.  Winter's  coming ;  buy  the  yellow- 
haired  kids  some  shoes  ;  get  the  wife  a  warm. 


THE   HENCHMAN  85 

dress.  You  can  pay  me  when  Poland  gets  its 
independence." 

Kiska  took  the  money.  "  I  vould  like  to  vork 
for  you,"  he  exclaimed. 

"  Would  you  ?  "  laughed  the  politician.  "  I 
think  perhaps  you  may  some  day." 

The  minor  social  conventions,  which,  after  all, 
are  possibly  the  major  ones,  were  consistently 
ignored  by  Shelby. 

"  Not  at  home  ? "  he  repeated  after  Ruth's 
maid.  "  I  guess  you're  mistaken.  I  saw  Miss 
Temple  at  the  window  as  I  drove  in  the  gate. 
Just  look  around  a  bit,  and  you'll  find  her." 

He  walked  calmly  past  the  bewildered  girl  to 
the  drawing-room.  In  the  centre  of  the  apart- 
ment stood  Ruth,  her  cheeks  waving  crimson, 
like  a  poppy  field  astir. 

"  Angry  ?  "  said  the  man. 

Ruth  waited  till  the  open-mouthed  maid  had 
retreated  down  the  hall. 

"  I'm  furious,"  she  answered,  and  looked  the 
part. 

"  Think  I'm  a  boor  ?  " 

She  could  not  trust  herself  to  reply.  Had  he 
dared  smile  then,  she  would  have  swept  by  him, 
but  he  was  wholly  grave. 


86  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  you're  thinking,"  he  said 
quietly.  "  You  are  thinking  that  I  have  fallen 
short  of  your  notion  of  me.  You  listened  the 
other  night  at  the  court-house  and  thought  kindly 
things.  Then  you  were  told  by  my  enemies  that 
I  had  used  in  part  what  was  not  my  own.  You 
were  vexed,  for  it  impeached  your  judgment  of 
character.  Then  I  failed  of  my  appointment,  and 
did  you  a  more  grievous  wrong — I  piqued  your 
woman's  vanity." 

Ruth  gasped. 

"  Your  effrontery  is  —  is  fascinating." 

Shelby's  eyes  hinted  a  smile.  She  had  said 
what  she  thought. 

"  I  shall  not  defend  myself  to  you  against  the 
charges  of  the  Whig"  he  went  on.  "  I  doubt 
even  if  I  shall  answer  them  publicly.  Greater 
men  than  I  have  had  their  names  blackened  in  a 
campaign,  and  deemed  silence  the  wisest  answer. 
People  don't  ascribe  many  virtues  to  the  poli- 
tician, but  even  he  occasionally  turns  the  other 
cheek.  As  for  my  tardiness  to-day  —  well,  I 
could  have  avoided  it." 

"  You  admit  it  ?  "  blazed  Ruth. 

"  Yes.     I  had  my  choice." 

"And  you  chose — "  The  shabby  figure  she 
had  seen  descend  from  Shelby's  office  visualized 
itself  sharply. 


THE    HENCHMAN  87 

"Yes  —  poor  devil  —  I  chose  Kiska." 

Her  mood  veered,  and  she  whirled  impulsively 
toward  him,  all  womanliness  and  contrition. 

"  Forgive  me.  How  could  I  know  ?  I 
thought  —  I  thought  —  " 

"  That  it  was  some  heeler  with  a  vote  to  sell  ?  " 

Her  face  betrayed  her. 

"  Forgive  me,"  she  repeated.  "  You  would 
have  done  wrong  to  turn  him  away  because  of 
me.  I  know  of  your  noble  deed  —  who  does 
not  ?  I  am  proud  of  you,  and  wished  to' tell  you 
so.  I  wanted  to  see  you  for  this  —  to  praise  your 
heroism.  I've  been  your  friend  in  that  —  that 
other  thing.  I  could  see  how  the  crowd,  the  ex- 
hilaration, the  sense  of  mastery,  might  lure  one 
on.  I  looked  at  it  dispassionately  —  with  a 
friend's  eyes.  I  was  loyal  till  I  thought  you  held 
my  friendship  lightly,  and  put  politics  before  it. 
I  own  my  mistake  —  my  injustice." 

Shelby  had  not  dreamed  of  vindication  so 
sweeping,  and,  with  a  word  of  modest  disclaimer, 
led  the  talk  to  pacific  commonplace.  It  was  too 
late  for  the  promised  drive,  and  indeed  neither  of 
them  thought  of  it  again  till  the  door  had  shut 
between  them. 

In  leaving,  the  man's  glance  was  arrested  by  an 
object  on  the  piano. 


88  THE   HENCHMAN 

"  What  is  that  called  ?  "  he  asked  abruptly. 

"  The  cast  ?  That  is  my  Victory  —  the  famous 
Victory  of  Samothrace,  which  suggested  the  poem 
everybody's  reading.  It's  my  despair.  I've 
failed  at  drawing  it  for  years.  The  original  is  in 
the  Louvre,  and  towers  gloriously  over  a  stair- 
case. I  can  shut  my  eyes  and  see  it  perfectly." 

"  Pretty  old  ?  "  ventured  Shelby. 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  it's  an  antique.  See  how  ruffian 
Time  has  dealt  with  it." 

The  man  walked  slowly  round  the  goddess, 
surveying  her  from  every  side. 

"  A  day  or  two  ago,"  he  said  simply,  "  I  saw 
that  image  in  a  house,  and,  in  my  ignorance, 
thought  a  servant  had  broken  it.  I  wondered 
why  the  people  didn't  pitch  it  out." 

His  tone  went  straight  to  her  sympathy. 

"  Many  are  strangers  in  the  kingdom  of  Art," 
she  returned  gently.  "  Most  of  us  must  come  to 
it  like  little  children." 

Shelby  was  silent  for  a  moment.  Then  he 
said  :  — 

"  In  Bernard  Graves's  opinion  I  am  aestheti- 
cally dead —  I  believe  those  were  his  words." 

The  girl  started. 

"  I  never  repeated  them,"  she  protested. 

"  What,"  laughed  Shelby,  grimly,  "  has  he  told 


THE    HENCHMAN  89 

you  that,  too  ?  He's  evidently  fond  of  the 
phrase.  Perhaps  he  is  right.  Yet  I  hope  not. 
I'd  rather  think  I'm  merely  unborn.  I  am  not  a 
voluntary  Ishmaelite.  I  simply  haven't  had  the 
chance  to  learn." 


CHAPTER   IX 

A  FAULT  recognized,  it  was  Ruth's  nature  to  be 
lavish  of  atonement,  and  by  way  of  further  expia- 
tion she  consented  a  day  or  two  later  to  make  one 
of  a  driving  party  of  Mrs.  Milliard's  to  hear 
Shelby  speak  in  a  village  located  "  down  north," 
as  the  local  vernacular  had  it,  near  the  shore  of 
Lake  Ontario.  Ruth  cared  little  for  Mrs.  Mil- 
liard. She  saw  iier  through  feminine  eyes,  and 
Mrs.  Milliard  was  not  popular  with  women.  But 
Shelby  had  privily  told  her  of  the  project  and 
begged  her  to  accept. 

"  I  had  planned  to  rent  the  Tuscarora  House 
tallyho  and  go  with  some  eclat,"  the  lady  lamented 
at  the  eleventh  hour,  "  but  the  way  people  have 
disappointed  me  is  positively  harrowing.  There 
was  Bernard  Graves  —  I  pinned  my  childlike 
faith  on  him  ;  but  he  sent  regrets.  And  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Bowers.  Wouldn't  you  think  that  they,  of 
all  people,  would  wish  to  go  ?  But  no  ;  Mrs. 
Bowers  said  it  did  her  rheumatic  shoulder  no 
good  to  traipse  around  nights,  —  that  was  her  ex- 
pression,—  and  Mr.  Bowers  actually  told  me  that 

90 


THE   HENCHMAN  91 

he  was  too  busy  organizing  political  meetings  to 
want  to  attend  them.  Isn't  he  droll  ?  Then  Mr. 
Hewett  had  a  sermon  to  prepare  ;  and  Dr.  Cran- 
dall  had  a  case  of  diphtheria  to  watch  ;  and  Volney 
Sprague  —  well,  I  really  did  not  dare  ask  him,  he 
was  so  horrid  in  his  paper  about  Mr.  Shelby's 
splendid  speech.  So  one  and  all  they  began  to 
make  excuses,  as  the  Bible  says,  till  it  has  sim- 
mered down  to  you,  dear  Ruth,  and  Joe,  and  Mr. 
Shelby,  and  me." 

"  Oh,"  said  Ruth,  with  misgiving. 

"  A  sort  of  survival  of  the  fittest,  don't  you 
know,  as  somebody  or  other  says.  Was  it  Shake- 
speare ?  He  really  seems  to  have  written  all  the 
clever  things." 

"  No,"  Ruth  replied  with  gravity ;  "  it  wasn't 
Shakespeare." 

"  Really  ?  I  thought  it  sounded  Shakespearian. 
Well,  as  I  was  telling  you,  it  has  come  to  a  jolly 
little  company  of  four  in  my  surrey,  which,  after 
all,  is  perhaps  nicer  than  a  dozen  in  a  tallyho, 
though  of  course  it  won't  impress  the  voters  as 
much." 

Ruth's  eyebrows  arched. 

"  Is  that  the  object  of  our  going  ?  " 

"  What  an  idea,  my  dear  !  "  Nevertheless,  she 
colored.  "We'll  start  early  enough  for  a  fish 


92  THE    HENCHMAN 

supper  at  the  Lakeview  Inn,"  she  rattled  on. 
"  You  know  how  good  their  fish  suppers  are. 
And  perhaps  we  shall  have  time  to  stop  at  the 
camp-meeting  of  those  ridiculous  Free  Metho- 
dists which  is  in  full  swing  at  the  grove  behind 
the  hotel.  Joe  says  that  it  will  be  the  last  night 
of  the  camp,  and  equal  to  Barnum's  Three  Rings 
and  Mammoth  Hippodrome.  Doesn't  that 
sound  just  like  Joe?  I'm  sure  we  can  manage 
to  see  something  of  it.  Mr.  Shelby's  meeting 
won't  begin  till  eight-thirty  and  Eden  Centre 
can't  be  ten  minutes'  drive  from  the  grove." 

She  sowed  without  conception  of  the  harvest. 
The  pleasuring  so  idly  planned,  the  religionists 
whose  vagaries  provoked  her  laughter,  were  in 
time  to  bulk  huge  in  a  clairvoyant  light  of  revela- 
tion. 

It  fell  a  ripe  autumn  day  with  the  haze  man- 
tling the  orchards  like  the  purple  of  a  plum,  a  day 
in  whose  magic  atmosphere  even  common  things 
wore  an  air  of  poetry.  The  very  canal  was  trans- 
figured. 

"  There  is  a  bit  of  Holland,"  said  Ruth,  as 
they  crossed  the  waterway  on  the  ragged  hem  of 
the  town.  "  If  this  were  Europe  and  the  court- 
house over  there  could  triple  its  age  and  take 
another  name,  this  bridge  would  swarm  with  the 


THE    HENCHMAN 


93 


f  personally  conducted '  admiring  the  view.  I 
don't  wonder  that  artists  are  beginning  to  paint 
the  canal." 

"  They  say  a  house-boat  party  came  through 
last  week,"  Mrs.  Hilliard  remarked. 

"  Tied  their  scow  near  my  place,"  put  in  her 
husband.  "  Had  the  hold  all  rigged  up  with  a 
piano  and  curtains  and  rugs.  Harum-scarum 
looking  lot  of  men  and  women  you  wouldn't 
trust  to  paint  a  barn.  They  overran  the  quarries 
and  made  pictures  of  the  Polacks." 

"  Bernard  Graves  met  them,"  Ruth  added. 
"They  told  him  that  Little  Poland  was  a  second 
Barbizon  for  peasant  models,  with  an  f  Angelus ' 
or  a  '  Man  with  the  Hoe '  around  every  corner." 

Joe  Hilliard  guffawed. 

"  Guess  they  meant  the  woman  with  the  hoe ; 
she's  the  agriculturalist  in  the  Polack  matrimonial 
team." 

Shelby  was  discreetly  backward  in  these  quick- 
sands which  the  quarry  owner  did  not  fear  to 
tread,  but  the  canal  stirred  his  imagination,  too, 
and  in  a  characteristic  way. 

"  It  takes  seven  figures  to  express  last  year's 
tonnage  down  the  Ditch  to  tidewater,"  he  told 
them ;  "  stone,  lumber,  food.  Why  it  dumped 
over  three-quarters  of  a  million  tons  of  food  alone 


94  THE    HENCHMAN 

into  New  York  City's  maw.  Yet  they  say  it's 
antiquated  and  can't  compete  with  the  railroads. 
What  else  has  kept  the  railroads  within  bounds  ? 
Ask  any  Tuscarora  shipper  what  happens  yearly 
when  navigation  closes.  Abandon  it !  We'll  see. 
The  canal  counties  swing  a  pretty  vote  in  this 
state." 

Hilliard  laughed. 

"Think  you're  addressing  the  Legislature, 
Ross  ? " 

"  I  heard  you  address  the  Assembly  once," 
Ruth  said.  "  I  was  a  Vassar  girl  then,  visiting 
Albany  friends.  You  spoke  about  the  canals,  and 
the  other  members  stopped  gossiping  and  writing 
letters  to  listen." 

"  The  canal  is  a  part  of  my  religion,"  Shelby 
answered. 

They  crossed  the  ancient  shore  line  of  the  lake, 
the  Ridge,  so-called,  —  successive  highway  of  the 
Iroquois,  the  pioneer,  the  stage-coach,  and  the  ubi- 
quitous trolley,  —  and  caught  presently  the  distant 
shimmer  of  Ontario,  sail-dotted,  intensely  blue. 
That  first  glimpse  of  the  inland  sea  always  stirred 
Ruth  to  the  depths.  It  was  not  the  romance  of 
New  France  alone  which  it  evoked  —  that  pictu- 
resque procession  of  redmen,  coureurs  de  boisy 
friars,  Jesuits,'  soldiers  of  fortune,  La  Salle,  Fron- 


THE    HENCHMAN  95 

tenac,  the  conquering  English,  the  conqueror- 
conquering  American  —  but  the  mystery  of  the 
vaster  tidal  sea  toward  which  it  drew,  whose 
supremest  witchery  none  may  know  save  the 
yearning  inland-born. 

"  Calm  as  a  puddle  to-day,"  said  Joe.  "  You 
can  almost  hear  the  Canucks  singing  'God  Save 
the  Queen.' ' 

Dusk  had  set  in  when  they  left  the  deserted 
piazzas  of  the  summer  hotel  for  the  camp-meet- 
ing in  the  grove.  The  flare  of  torches  wavered 
afar  between  the  tree  boles,  and  above  the  lapping 
of  the  waves  wailed  a  drear  hymn. 

Mrs.  Milliard  skipped  girlishly  in  the  wood- 
land path. 

"They've  begun,  they've  begun,"  she  exulted. 
"  We  shall  see  the  fun  after  all." 

"  It's  too  early  for  the  meeting  in  the  big  tent," 
Shelby  told  Ruth ;  "  but  if  you've  never  seen 
anything  of  the  kind,  the  scene  which  goes  before 
will  be  quite  as  curious." 

Skirting  a  makeshift  village  of  tiny  tents  and 
shanties  they  issued  to  a  torch-lit  clearing  in  the 
wood  whose  central  object  was  the  greater  tent, 
which,  frayed,  weathered,  and  patched  as  it  was, 
yet  stood  to  these  zealots  of  an  iron  creed  as  the 
chosen  tabernacle  of  a  very  God.  Its  rough 


96  THE    HENCHMAN 

benches  were  empty  now,  but  before  its  dingy 
portal  swayed  and  groaned  a  rapt  circle  of  men 
and  women,  hand  in  hand,  in  whose  midst  an  old 
man  with  a  prophet's  head  and  a  bigot's  eye  was 
gyrating  like  a  dervish  as  he  mouthed  the  hack- 
neyed phrases  of  the  sanctified.  As  the  new- 
comers pressed  among  the  bystanders  hemming 
the  inner  circle  of  the  faithful,  the  performer  with 
a  last  frantic  whirl  dropped  exhausted,  and  rolling 
down  a  slight  declivity  lay  stark  and  deathlike  at 
their  feet,  his  white  beard  and  hair  strewn  with 
russet  leaves. 

Ruth  recoiled  with  a  shudder.  The  swaying 
circle  redoubled  its  incantations,  and  left  him  to 
his  envied  beatitude.  Their  indifference  seemed 
inhuman  to  the  girl,  and  she  would  have  stooped 
to  the  prostrate  figure  but  for  Shelby's  detaining 
hand. 

"  Merely  the  '  Power,'  as  they  say,"  he  whis- 
pered, adding  cynically,  "  Epilepsy  can  be  feigned, 
you  know." 

She  desisted,  and  a  new  actor  waltzed  rhythmi- 
cally into  the  glare  of  light.  Her  short  rotund 
body  writhing  not  unlike  an  Oriental  dancer's, 
the  Widow  Weatherwax  had  assumed  the  centre 
of  the  ring.  The  sanctified  were  without  sense 
of  humor,  but  the  unregenerate  onlookers  were 


THE    HENCHMAN  97 

not  proof  against  the  comic  aspects  of  emotional 
religion,  and  from  the  dark  outskirts  rang  a  ribald 
laugh. 

"  Why  doesn't  that  dreadful  woman  wear  a 
corset  ? "  demanded  Mrs.  Hilliard  in  a  stage 
whisper  of  Ruth,  whose  face  went  suddenly 
aflame. 

"  The  widow  would  make  the  fortune  of  any 
Midway,  Ross,"  Joe  Hilliard  chuckled,  digging 
Shelby  in  the  ribs. 

"  Woe,  woe,  woe,"  chanted  the  widow,  spurred 
to  anathema  by  derision.  "  Woe  upon  scorners  ! 
Woe  upon  them  that  sit  in  the  seats  of  scorners  ! 
c  Ye  shut  up  the  kingdom  of  heaven  against  men  : 
for  ye  neither  go  in  yourselves,  neither  suffer  ye 
them  that  are  entering  to  go  in.' ' 

Scripture-quoting  was  reckoned  among  the  fine 
arts  in  the  widow's  circle,  and  an  applauding 
chorus  of  Praise  Gods  and  Amens  greeted  her 
dexterous  use  of  the  beloved  weapon.  She 
rounded  the  chain  once  more  in  her  grotesque 
dance ;  then,  suddenly  spying  the  little  group  of 
her  neighbors  peering  through  the  girdle  of  the 
sanctified,  she  halted,  directly  fronting  them,  and, 
singling  out  Mrs.  Hilliard,  who  was  conspicuous 
in  a  red  tailor-made  gown,  she  transfixed  her  with 
her  beady  eyes. 


98  THE   HENCHMAN 

"  Woe,  woe,  woe,"  she  wailed  again,  rocking  to 
and  fro.  "  Woe  upon  Babylon  !  c  Babylon  the 
great  is  fallen,  is  fallen,  and  is  become  the  habita- 
tion of  devils,  and  the  hold  of  every  foul  spirit, 
and  a  cage  of  every  unclean  and  hateful  bird ! ' 

The  brethren  thrilled  at  the  well-understood 
allusion  to  the  speaker's  abiding-place,  while  the 
outsiders,  scenting  a  veiled  scurrility,  craned  to 
listen  and  to  watch. 

Secure  of  her  audience,  the  widow  paused  as 
if  waiting  the  descent  of  the  prophetic  afflatus. 
Then:  — 

"  f  And  I  heard  -another  voice  from  heaven,  say- 
ing, Come  out  of  her,  my  people,  that  ye  be  not 
partakers  of  her  sins,  and  that  ye  receive  not  of 
her  plagues.  For  her  sins  have  reached  unto 
heaven,  and  God  hath  remembered  her  iniquities. 
Reward  her  even  as  she  rewarded  you,  and  double 
unto  her  double  according  to  her  works  :  in  the 
cup  which  she  hath  filled  fill  to  her  double.  How 
much  she  hath  glorified  herself,  and  lived  deli- 
ciously,  so  much  torment  and  sorrow  give  her : 
for  she  saith  in  her  heart,  I  sit  a  queen,  and  am  no 
widow,  and  shall  see  no  sorrow.  Therefore  shall 
her  plagues  come  in  one  day,  death,  and  mourning, 
and  famine ;  and  she  shall  be  utterly  burned  with 
fire.' " 


THE    HENCHMAN 


99 


Ruth  vacillated  between  fascination  and  disgust. 
The  flickering  torches,  the  soughing  wind,  the 
lapping  waves,  the  old,  old  words,  lent  the  de- 
nunciation a  solemnity  which  transcended  the 
bizarre  mouthpiece.  She  shook  off  the  im- 
pression, however,  and  asked  Shelby  to  take 
her  away. 

"  Yes ;  it's  time  to  leave  for  the  rally,"  he 
acquiesced.  "  I'll  speak  to  the  Milliards. " 

As  they  turned,  they  saw  that  Mrs.  Milliard's 
eyes  were  riveted  on  the  widow's  in  an  hypnotic 
stare.  In  shrill  singsong  the  woman  was  declaim- 
ing :— 

" f  So  he  carried  me  away  in  the  spirit  into  the 
wilderness :  and  I  saw  a  woman  sit  upon  a  scarlet 
beast,  full  of  names  of  blasphemy,  having  seven 
heads  and  ten  horns.  And  the  woman  was 
arrayed  in  purple  and  scarlet  color,  and  decked 
with  gold  and  precious  stones  and  pearls,  hav- 
ing a  golden  cup  in  her  hand  full  of  abomina- 
tions— '" 

Whereupon  Mrs.  Hilliard  suddenly  stopped 
her  ears  and  grovelled  on  her  knees  full  in  the 
light  of  the  torches,  her  shoulders  quivering  with 
hysterical  sobs.  There  was  a  ripple  of  sensation 
at  the  prominence  of  the  convert,  and  triumphant 
peals  of  "  Saved  by  His  precious  blood,"  "  Saved 


ioo  THE    HENCHMAN 

by  the  Lamb,"  "  Look  to  Him,  sister,  look  to 
Him,"  and  the  like.  Then  big  Joe  Hilliard 
stolidly  thrust  himself  into  the  ring,  and,  raising 
the  stricken  woman,  bore  her  away  into  the  outer 
darkness.  Apart  from  the  crowd,  Hilliard  shook 
his  wife  with  rough  kindness. 

"  Wake  up,  girl,"  he  said.  "  Nightmare's  over. 
I  guess  you  need  a  dose  of  camomile." 

In  the  inky  outskirts  she  presently  threw  off 
the  obvious  marks  of  her  hysteria,  but  by  little 
signs  another  woman  might  read,  Ruth  saw  hours 
afterward  that  the  spell  possessed  her  still.  Its 
gloom  seemed  to  overcast  the  entire  evening. 
Either  through  insufficient  advertising,  or  the 
crass  stupidity  of  the  enfranchised  of  Eden  Centre, 
who  thought  less  of  their  political  enlightenment 
than  the  noisy  saving  of  their  souls,  Shelby's 
meeting  proved  a  pitiful  fiasco.  Hardly  a  score 
had  gathered  in  the  low-ceiled  schoolhouse,  fetid 
with  reeking  kerosene  lamps  and  wilting  humanity; 
and  of  this  beggarly  handful  two-thirds  were 
women.  Shelby  assumed  a  cheerful  front,  declar- 
ing that  a  small  audience  so  assembled  was  deserv- 
ing of  his  best,  but  hewing  to  this  line  was  another 
matter.  Womankind  are  proverbially  indifferent 
to  politics;  and  a  stouter  resolution  than  his  would 
have  flagged  in  the  presence  of  that  preoccupied 


THE    HENCHMAN  101 

feminine  two-thirds,  whose  eyes  were  centred  on 
Mrs.  Milliard's  tailor-made  gown  and  Ruth  Tem- 
ple's fall  hat.  Used  as  he  was  to  easy  victory, 
this  first  disappointment  of  his  campaign  seemed 
bodeful  of  evil  days  to  come. 


CHAPTER   X 

YET  when  mischief  speedily  befell,  it  wore  so 
curious  a  guise  that  Shelby  missed  its  import  and 
laughed  it  aside  for  a  random  fling  of  jocund  Fate. 
It  began  with  a  publisher's  announcement  of  a 
volume  containing  the  collected  poems  of  the 
author  of  the  admired,  imitated,  parodied,  and 
derided  ode  on  the  "Victory  of  Samothrace," 
anonymous  no  longer,  but  the  avowed  offspring 
of  Bernard  Graves.  Dazed,  incredulous,  and 
slow  to  do  him  honor,  the  prophet's  own  country 
advanced  a  theory  of  mistaken  identity.  But 
reluctant  New  Babylon  had  soon  to  recognize 
the  young  man's  vogue.  Through  its  supposed 
advocacy  of  woman  suffrage  the  poem  had  all 
but  founded  a  cult,  and  the  disclosure  of  its  true 
author,  after  months  of  guesswork  and  silly-season 
gush,  bounced  and  ricochetted  among  the  news- 
papers with  astonishing  ado.  With  the  Whig  in 
the  forefront  the  local  press  began  to  echo  the 
gossiping  paragraphs  and  character  sketches  which, 
true,  half  true,  and  of  whole  cloth,  padded  the 
lean  columns  of  a  mediocre  literary  season,  and 


THE    HENCHMAN 


103 


New  Babylon  had  faith.  The  last  doubting 
Thomas  yielded  when  it  became  necessary  to 
convey  the  celebrity's  mail  to  his  home  in  a  spe- 
cial bag ;  not  even  the  ensuing  plague  of  special 
correspondents,  biographical  dictionary  solicitors, 
photographers,  and  worshipping  pilgrims  so  stirred 
the  local  imagination  ;  this  surely  was  fame  ! 

To  Ruth  Temple,  who  by  some  sorcery  guessed 
his  secret  before  its  public  revelation,  Graves  went 
with  his  laurels  thick  upon  him. 

"  How  does  it  feel  to  be  a  celebrity  ? "  he  said, 
meeting  her  volley  of  questions  collectively. 
"  Much  like  a  breakfast  cereal,  a  patent  medicine, 
or  a  soap.  Byron  said  that  the  first  thing  which 
sounded  like  fame  to  him  was  the  tidings  that  he 
was  read  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio.  It's  differ- 
ent nowadays.  The  first  taste  usually  comes 
from  seeing  your  name  placarded  on  a  dead  wall 
between  some  equally  distinguished  rolled  oats 
and  a  new  five-cent  cigar.  Personally  I  think  I 
first  saw  the  (  gypsy '  face  to  face  when  the  Hon. 
Seneca  Bowers  told  me  that  save  *  Betsey  and  I  Are 
Out '  he  had  read  no  poem  but  mine  in  twenty 
years.  That  was  my  '  Ohio,'  though  of  course 
Mrs.  Hilliard's  request  for  an  author's  reading  at 
the  Culture  Club  was  an  annunciation  in  itself. 
Am  I  becoming  fabulously  rich  from  my  royalties  ? 


104  THE   HENCHMAN 

Alas !  no ;  I  must  buy  too  many  presentation 
copies  for  people  who  fancy  that  I  obtain  gratis 
really  more  than  I  know  what  to  do  with.  Shall 
I  write  for  the  stage  ?  I  could  as  easily  write  a 
cook  book.  Do  I  give  my  autograph  ?  Always, 
if  a  stamped  envelope  is  enclosed.  One  of  our 
hardest-working  presidents  daily  set  apart  a  time 
for  autographs  ;  why  then  should  a  popular  writer 
pretend  that  it  bores  him  ?  He  is  secretly  tickled, 
and  probably  collects  autographs  himself." 

Ruth  laughed,  but  denied  that  he  had  exhausted 
her  questions. 

"  Why  did  you  withhold  your  name  from  your 
masterpiece  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Partly  because  it  was  my  masterpiece,  —  it 
would  be  false  modesty  to  deny  that  I  know  it,  — 
and  I  had  some  notion  of  digging  a  pit  for  the 
critics.  But  the  main  reason  was  to  confound  my 
Uncle  Peter." 

"  I  didn't  know  you  had  an  uncle." 

"  I  haven't  in  the  flesh.  '  Uncle  Peter '  is 
generic  —  a  polite  lumping  together  of  my  chronic 
fault-finders  within  the  family  and  without.  You 
know  him.  Both  masculine  and  feminine,  he's 
eternally  an  old  woman.  Everybody  knows 
Uncle  Peter,  the  first  to  censure  and  the  last  to 
praise.  Now,  as  I've  been  his  especial  tidbit  and 


THE    HENCHMAN  105 

awful  example  for  years,  I  had  to  school  myself 
to  the  thought  of  snatching  the  daily  morsel  of 
gossip  from  his  mouth.  The  murder  out,  Uncle 
Peter's  grief  is  pitiful.  How  much  sharper  than 
a  serpent's  tooth  is  a  prophecy  of  evil  unfulfilled  ! 
It's  not  that  he  considers  I've  gone  to  work,  incor- 
rigible vagabond  that  I  am ;  it's  the  fact  that  my 
intolerable  idling  has  produced  money  which  sets 
his  teeth  on  edge  —  money,  the  golden  calf  of 
Uncle  Peter's  narrow  idolatrous  soul." 

Ruth  had  no  liking  for  his  moments  of  acid 
mockery. 

"  Don't  let  Uncle  Peter  overshadow  your 
friends,"  she  warned. 

"I'll  not,"  promised  the  man.  "And  you  — 
by  what  witchery  of  friendship  did  you  find  me 
out  ? "  He  shifted  his  seat,  seeking  her  eyes. 
"  Ruth,  was  it  love  ?  " 

She  did  not  answer  immediately. 

"  Be  my  wife,  Ruth,"  he  said. 

"  It  was  not  love,"  she  replied  simply. 

It  was  one  of  the  oddities  of  his  temperament 
that  at  this  moment  he  saw  himself  objectively. 
What  a  subdued  neutral  tinted  thing  was  life ! 
By  all  the  canons  of  romance  it  was  now  his  cue 
for  perfervid  speech. 

"  What  then  ? "  he  asked  quietly. 


io6  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Liking  —  a  real  liking." 

"  Will  it  grow  warmer?  " 

"  I  cannot  tell." 

"  I  will  teach  you  to  love  me,"  he  declared,  his 
artistic  self  nudging  him  meanwhile  that  he  had 
dropped  into  the  worn  formula  of  the  ages. 

Ruth  did  not  deny  him  the  attempt,  and  he 
undertook  a  lesson  on  the  spot,  pointing  out 
that  they  saw  life  through  similar  eyes ;  that  art, 
music,  literature  spoke  with  a  common  voice ; 
that  if  true  marriage  were  perfect  companionship, 
the  auguries  were  not  uncertain  in  their  happy 
omen  ;  so  on  till  he  weaned  her  with  argument. 

"All  those  things  refine  love,"  she  put  in  at 
last,  a  little  wistfully;  "they  are  not  its  essence. 
A  man  may  be  a  barbarian  and  yet  lovable." 

He  desisted  at  that,  and  presently  went  away. 
Out  of  doors  her  words  clothed  themselves  with 
a  personal  application.  Shelby  —  lovable  barba- 
rian !  — was  entering  the  gate. 

Of  what  immediately  followed  neither  man  re- 
tained a  clear  recollection.  It  was  a  clash  of 
temperaments  hopelessly  at  odds,  in  which  the 
spoken  word  weighed  little  beside  the  mute  antip- 
athy jaundicing  the  mind.  Yet  the  word  played 
no  small  part  in  the  sequel.  Graves  assured 
Shelby  that  he  should  spare  no  effort  to  compass 


THE    HENCHMAN  107 

his  defeat ;  while  Shelby  in  his  turn  suggested 
that  the  zest  of  the  campaign  would  be  doubled  if 
Graves  were  only  his  ridiculous  opponent. 

Puzzling  how  the  quarrel  could  have  begun 
and  hurried  to  its  climax  so  swiftly,  Bernard 
Graves  swung  up  the  street  heedless  of  his  steps. 
Then  the  bland  colonial  fa9ade  of  the  public 
library  confronted  him  like  a  smirking  face  and, 
as  his  vagrant  fancy  trifled  with  the  conceit,  its 
lips  opened  to  emit  two  chattering  girls. 

"  I  was  the  tenth  on  the  waiting-list,"  said  one. 

He  saw  that  she  spoke  of  his  own  volume 
which  she  held  in  a  triumphant  embrace  with  a 
box  of  caramels,  and  was  rilled  with  a  nauseated 
disgust  for  his  handiwork.  Retracing  his  steps 
he  climbed  to  the  Whig  office,  and  finding  Sprague 
at  his  desk,  he  swept  a  pile  of  exchanges  from  a 
chair  and  drew  it  to  the  editor's  elbow. 

"  Volney,"  he  asked,  "  does  this  talk  of  an 
independent  movement  against  Ross  Shelby 
amount  to  anything  ?  " 

Sprague's  eye  lit. 

"  It's  gathering  headway  every  minute,"  he 
declared.  "We  require  just  one  thing  —  a  can- 
didate of  prominence  and  backbone." 

Graves  reached  past  the  paste-pot  to  capture  a 
fugitive  match. 


io8  THE   HENCHMAN 

"  What  do  you  say  to  me  ?  " 

"  What  do  I  say  !  "  Unwinding  his  long  legs 
from  his  chair  rounds  the  editor  dealt  his  friend  a 
clap  between  the  shoulders  which  sent  his  cigarette 
spinning  to  the  floor.  "  I  say  you're  a  trump." 

Sprague  had  not  a  little  in  common  with  the 
type  in  the  political  cosmos  which  is  contemptu- 
ously styled  cloistered.  Of  New  England  stock, 
like  most  of  Tuscarora,  he  had  been  born  of  a 
later  migration  than  the  pioneers',  and  was  hence 
less  tempered  by  New  York  influences  for  good 
or  ill.  Begotten  a  generation  earlier,  he  would 
have  tended  transcendental  pigs  at  Brook  Farm. 
His  earliest  political  recollections  were  associated 
with  heated  quotations  from  Garrison  and  Wendell 
Phillips,  and  the  sharpest-etched  memory  of  his 
childhood  had  to  do  with  a  runaway  slave  har- 
bored in  his  father's  garret.  As  a  man  he  was 
given  to  printing  Emersonian  nuggets  in  the  edi- 
torial columns  of  the  Whig^  his  favorite  sentiment 
being,  "  Hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star,"  whose 
practical  application  ted  him  over  highways  which 
knew  not  macadam.  He  now  perceived  nothing 
grotesque  in  Bernard  Graves's  proposal,  nor  did 
it  astonish  him.  From  his  office  window  he  had 
chanced  to  overlook  the  stormy  meeting  of  the 
suitors,  but  he  gave  Graves  no  hint. 


THE    HENCHMAN  109 

"  With  any  other  candidate  I  can  think  of,"  he 
declared,  "  this  movement  would  merely  signify 
the  protest  of  a  self-respecting  minority ;  with 
you,  the  author  of  the  famous  Samothrace  ode, — 
gad !  I  think  it  augurs  victory  by  a  handsome 
majority." 

Graves  colored. 

"  I  had  forgotten  the  ode,"  he  confessed. 
"  Couldn't  we  eliminate  that  from  the  cam- 
paign ?  " 

"  Eliminate  it !  Why,  boy,  it's  half  your  plat- 
form." 

"  Is  it  ?  "  said  the  novice,  drearily.  "  Oh,  very 
well.  I  thought  I  should  like  to  run  on  the 
moral  issue.  Shelby  is  corrupt,  and  the  other 
party  is  certain  to  name  some  creature  who  would 
out-Shelby  Shelby  if  he  got  the  chance.  That 
seems  to  me  issue  enough  for  a  third  candidate 
without  dragging  in  my  verses.  I'm  sick  of 
them." 

"  Do  you  find  your  royalties  a  nuisance?  " 

"  Don't  be  banal,  Volney.  You  understand 
me.  I  don't  want  to  be  the  one-sided  artist 
merely ;  I  want  to  do  things  as  well  as  write 
about  them,  and  I  want  the  provinces  separate." 

Sprague  laughed  paternally. 

"  If  I'm  not  to  be  banal,  neither  must  you  be 


no  THE    HENCHMAN 

impracticable.  It's  the  ode  that  makes  you  avail- 
able and  enables  you  to  do  things,  and  there  can 
be  no  question  of  dividing  your  personality  as 
King  Louis  something-or-other  tried  to  do.  You 
have  placed  yourself  in  my  hands.  Very  good. 
I  assure  you  that  I  can  nominate  you.  You 
should  therefore  defer  to  my  judgment.  You 
owe  me  that." 

"  Of  course." 

"  Yes ;  well,  then,  Congressman  Graves  that  is 
to  be,  here  is  the  situation  in  a  nutshell :  In 
Tuscarora  Shelby  has  gained  ground  because  of 
the  Kiska  affair.  Little  Poland  has  his  litho- 
graph in  every  window.  Elsewhere  in  the  Demi- 
john I've  reason  to  know  that  he's  in  exceedingly 
bad  odor,  and  that  a  third  ticket  would  draw  no 
end  of  support  from  thinking  voters  who  like 
Shelby  little,  but  the  other  party  less.  At  present, 
you  see,  it's  frying-pan  or  fire  for  them."  The 
editor  paused  to  charge  a  discolored  corn-cob  pipe. 
"  Now  your  coming  changes  all  that,"  he  con- 
tinued, tilting  back  in  the  wreathing  smoke.  "  I 
tell  you  it  warms  my  heart  to  think  of  you  oppos- 
ing Shelby ;  it's  a  draught  of  Falernian,  no  less. 
It's  logically,  it's  romantically,  fitting  that  you 
who  unmasked  his  plagiarism  should  battle  with 
him  at  the  polls.  Moreover,  your  discovery  puts 


THE    HENCHMAN  in 

such  a  feather  in  your  cap  at  the  outset.  You've 
proved  your  political  acuteness  ;  you've  won  your 
spurs.  It's  town  talk  that  the  credit  is  yours,  —  I 
acknowlege  it  whenever  asked,  —  and  now  that 
you  are  to  enter  the  field,  I'll  blazon  it  to  the  four 
winds." 

"  If  the  world  takes  it  as  placidly  as  New  Baby- 
lon, it  will  do  us  little  good." 

"  Ah,  but  the  world  isn't  so  stupid,"  retorted 
Sprague,  beginning  to  rummage  his  chaotic  desk. 
"There,  sir,"  he  went  on,  dragging  a  bundle  of 
newspaper  clippings  to  the  surface,  "  there  is  the 
world's  opinion  of  the  exposure.  Rochester, 
Buffalo,  Albany,  Utica,  Syracuse,  Troy  —  you'll 
find  the  comments  of  every  important  city  in  the 
state  voiced  by  reputable  journals ;  New  York 
—  why,  New  York  gave  it  three  editorials,  not 
one  of  them  less  than  two  sticks.  No  utterance 
of  the  Whig  ever  attracted  such  attention.  I 
tell  you,  man,  that,  your  poem  aside,  your  ad- 
vent in  politics  with  this  thing  to  your  credit 
makes  you  a  figure  of  state  importance ;  with 
the  ode  —  gad,  sir,  your  canvass  is  of  national 
concern." 

"  It  sounds  like  a  dream  of  Colonel  Mulberry 
Sellers's,"  laughed  Graves,  but  he  warmed  to  the 
editor's  mood.  "  You're  sure  I  can  have  the 


ii2  THE    HENCHMAN 

nomination  ?  We're  flying  in  the  face  of  the  Boss 
and  all  his  works." 

Sprague  flung  out  his  thin  hands  impatiently. 

"  I  have  told  you  that  it  rests  with  me." 

The  tyro  dropped  an  acute,  if  indiscreet,  obser- 
vation. 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  said  he,  "  that  you  are 
something  of  a  boss  yourself." 

"  Every  cause  must  have  a  leader.  I  have 
been  the  consistent  head  and  front  of  the  protest 
against  Shelbyism,  and  the  independent  move- 
ment is  of  my  creating.  Why  shouldn't  I  name 
the  candidate  ? " 

Bernard  Graves  retreated  hastily  from  this 
ticklish  corner,  and  put  forward  a  vague  supposi- 
tion that  there  would  have  to  be  "  caucuses,  con- 
ventions, and  things." 

"  Independent  nominations  are  made  by  certifi- 
cate." 

"  Oh,"  said  the  young  man,  meekly,  "  I  see ;  " 
which  was  disingenuous.  He  silently  debated 
whether  this  meant  a  species  of  letter  of  recom- 
mendation, but  was  shy  of  asking. 

Sprague  mercifully  enlightened  him. 

"  I've  the  law  right  here,"  he  went  on,  tapping 
a  calf-bound  manual  which  Graves  eyed  with  pro- 
found respect.  "  An  independent  nomination  for 


THE    HENCHMAN  113 

Congress  requires  at  least  a  thousand  signers  who 
must  be  electors  of  the  district.  We've  ample 
time ;  it's  a  good  three  weeks  before  we  need  file 
our  certificate  with  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  a 
fortnight  would  answer  to  secure  the  minimum. 
But  we'll  not  content  ourselves  with  the  mini- 
mum ;  the  greater  our  list  of  signers,  the  stronger 
our  argument  in  the  campaign.  Voters  are  gre- 
garious, you  know." 

"  I've  noticed  the  importance  of  bell-wethers," 
Graves  remarked  dryly. 

"  Oh,  but  don't  asperse  the  intelligence  of  the 
flock,"  deprecated  the  reformer  quickly.  "  I've 
been  thought  to  idealize  The  People ;  perhaps  I 
do,  but  it  is  good  for  a  man  to  keep  sweet  his 
faith  in  humanity.  There's  a  saying  of  Emerson's 
that  fits  the  case  if  I  could  remember  it."  He 
scoured  his  memory  absently  for  an  interval. 
"  Well,  no  matter.  It  occurs  to  me  that  we'll 
need  an  emblem  for  our  ticket.  The  law  requires 
us  to  select  some  device.  The  eagles,  ballot- 
boxes,  roosters,  stars,  and  the  like  have  all  been 
preempted,  and  aren't  strikingly  significant  any- 
how. We  want  something  telling  —  a  graphic 
symbol  of  our  aim.  You  are  a  man  of  imagina- 
tion ;  what  is  your  notion  ?  " 

The  man  of  imagination   considered,  and  the 


ii4  THE    HENCHMAN 

editor's  excess  of  nervous  force  spent  itself  in  idle 
forays  about  his  desk,  one  of  which  brought  forth 
a  foot-rule ;  whirling  in  the  eager  fingers,  it 
proved  an  inspiration. 

"Why  not  — "  Graves  began;  "no,  not  that 
—  a  square,  a  carpenter's  square.  It  symbolizes 
everything  we  stand  for." 

"  Bravo  !  It's  a  slogan  to  win  with.  Square 
issues,  square  dealing,  square  men  !  We'll  pla- 
card every  fence  and  barn  door  in  the  district.  A 
woodcut  will  cost  next  to  nothing,  and  I'll  run 
the  posters  off  right  here  on  the  premises." 

The  suggestion  bruised  Graves's  sensibilities. 

"  Is  that  necessary  ? "  he  protested  mildly. 
"  I'd  really  prefer  to  leave  all  that  sort  of  vandal- 
ism to  the  other  side ;  it's  so  philistine,  you 
know." 


BOOK  II 


CHAPTER   I 

VOLNEY  SPRAGUE'S  flaming  posters  in  black 
and  red  menaced  Shelby  from  the  selvage  of  the 
district  to  the  threshold  of  his  door.  The  State 
Committee  had  despatched  him  on  a  brief  stump- 
ing tour,  embracing  a  handful  of  canal  counties,  a 
section  of  the  grape  belt,  and  certain  strategic 
points  in  the  Southern  Tier,  and  he  had  kept  in 
fairly  regular  communication  with  Bowers;  but 
while  that  leader's  letters  were  usually  as  terse 
and  meaty  as  Caesar's  campaign  jottings  in  Gaul, 
they  somehow  failed  to  impress  the  candidate 
with  the  actual  condition  of  his  political  fences. 
It  was  therefore  with  the  shock  of  almost  com- 
plete surprise  that  he  entered  his  proper  bailiwick 
to  find  Bernard  Graves's  opposition  regarded 
seriously.  Saloons,  cigar  stores,  street  corners, 
the  billiard  room  of  the  Tuscarora  House,  all  his 
familiar  haunts,  buzzed  with  the  vote-getting  pos- 
sibilities of  an  independent  ticket  in  a  community 
where  regularity  had  become  well-nigh  a  fetich. 

Bowers  was  rudderless  and  irritable. 

"  I  advised  you  to  conciliate  young  Graves," 
117 


n8  THE    HENCHMAN 

he  fretted.  "  And  what  have  you  done  ?  Stroked 
him  the  wrong  way  ever  since.  I  hope  it's  a  les- 
son to  you  to  keep  politics  and  petticoats  apart." 

Shelby  jeered  at  his  inconsistency. 

"You  were  good  enough  to  suggest  that  I 
make  up  to  the  woman  in  the  case." 

"  Not  in  the  thick  of  a  campaign." 

Shelby's  optimism  was  not  easily  dashed  and 
he  laid  an  energetic  shoulder  to  the  lagging 
wheel.  His  associate's  rebound  from  depression 
was  less  elastic,  and  the  candidate's  thoughts  fur- 
rowed a  channel  they  had  frequently  taken  of 
late.  It  was  plain  to  him  that  the  older  man  was 
no  longer  equal  to  the  requirements  of  his  leader- 
ship. Sound  in  judgment,  shrewd  in  the  reading 
of  men,  vigorous  in  action  as  he  once  had  been, 
and  on  occasion  could  be  still,  he  was  neverthe- 
less of  an  earlier  and  more  leisured  school  of  poli- 
tics than  the  present  lively  generation  which  knew 
not  Joseph.  They  knew  other  things  —  the 
youngsters  —  strange  methods  of  the  city  ward; 
and  the  philosophic  observers,  who  on  all  sides 
think  they  descry  evidence  of  the  corruption  of 
the  country  by  the  city,  would  have  glibly  ex- 
plained to  the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers  the  causes  of 
his  inefficiency.  He  had  come  to  rely  more  and 
more  on  his  sprightly  deputy,  till  now,  virtual 


THE   HENCHMAN  119 

county  leader  and  his  party's  candidate,  Shelby, 
double-weighted,  prepared  to  wage  the  battle  of 
his  life. 

The  demands  upon  his  time  were  incessant. 
He  would  rise  in  his  unlovely  room  at  the  Tus- 
carora  House,  leaden  from  insufficient  sleep,  to  be 
buttonholed  before  he  breakfasted  —  sometimes, 
even  before  he  dressed  ;  this  man  must  be  pla- 
cated, that  threatened,  the  other  convinced  by 
reason  ;  another  must  be  visited  in  sickness,  an- 
other found  work,  for  yet  another  must  gratuitous 
lawyering  be  done  —  all  this  with  jovial  front  and 
a  camel's  capacity  for  drink.  This  was  his  domes- 
ticity, amidst  which  must  be  sandwiched  confer- 
ences and  journeyings  in  Tuscarora  County  and 
the  other  counties  of  his  district,  and  speeches  on 
behalf  of  the  party  outside  the  Demijohn,  entailed 
by  too  successful  stumping  in  the  past.  Capping 
all  was  the  perverse  closet-reformer,  Sprague,  and 
his  figurehead,  Graves. 

Shelby  was  a  believer  in  short  campaigns,  and 
the  time  left  the  independents  for  attack  was 
brief.  They  retrieved  the  handicap  by  added 
vigor,  and  subjected  his  every  public  act  to  mer- 
ciless scrutiny.  Sprague  formulated  the  case 
against  him  in  an  early  issue  of  the  Whig:  — 

"  We  are  asked,"  he  wrote,  "  to  publish  our 


120  THE    HENCHMAN 

specific  reasons  for  rejecting  this  candidate.  We 
gladly  comply.  The  counts  of  his  indictment  are 
many  ;  we  select  five  :  — 

"  We  refuse  to  support  a  candidate  of  any 
party  whatsoever  whose  nomination  issues  from 
dishonest  primaries.  It  is  notorious  that  the 
caucuses  preliminary  to  this  man's  nomination 
were  packed.  Can  you  gainsay  it,  Mr.  Shelby  ? 

"  We  refuse  to  support  a  candidate,  be  his 
nomination  never  so  spotless,  who  degrades  him- 
self and  the  office  to  which  he  aspires  by  the  theft 
of  another's  intellectual  property.  Can  you  deny 
your  plagiarism,  Mr.  Shelby  ? 

"  We  refuse  to  support  a  candidate,  be  his  nomi- 
nation irreproachable,  his  sense  of  mine  and  thine 
otherwise  undulled,  whose  legislative  record  is 
tainted  by  traffickings  peculiar  to  the  Black  Horse 
Cavalry — wanton  blackmailers  of  corporate  rights. 
It  is  of  common  knowledge  that  this  man  intro- 
duced in  the  last  session  a  bill  aimed  at  the  legit- 
imate profits  of  a  great  surface  railway  system, 
which  he  withdrew  for  no  reason  of  public  record. 
Can  you  make  affidavit  that  the  subsequent  sale 
of  a  block  of  that  same  railway's  stock  by  your 
business  associate  was  without  relevance,  Mr. 
Shelby  ? 

"  We  refuse  to  support  a  candidate,  be  his  nomi- 


THE    HENCHMAN  121 

nation  unimpeachable,  his  intellectual  honesty 
unchallenged,  his  legislative  record  without  stain, 
who,  posing  as  the  champion  of  our  canals,  never- 
theless lends  himself,  through  connivance  at 
fraudulent  contracts  and  the  appointment  of 
needless  officials,  to  the  squandering  of  the  moneys 
set  apart  for  their  use.  We  invite  you  to  dis- 
prove your  complicity  in  the  wasting  of  the  state's 
millions,  Mr.  Shelby. 

"  We  refuse,  lastly,  to  support  a  candidate,  be 
his  nomination  as  unsullied  as  his  personal  integ- 
rity, and  his  legislative  career  as  free  from  '  strikes' 
as  his  advocacy  of  our  pirate-infested  waterways  is 
disinterested,  who  is  yet  so  slavishly  the  hench- 
man of  his  party  machine  that  no  measure  it  may 
propose  is  too  unsavory  to  enlist  his  Dugald 
Dalgetty  loyalty.  By  your  closed  lips  you  coun- 
tenance the  land-jobbing  steal  which  your  great 
state  Boss  failed  by  the  merest  fluke  to  saddle 
upon  the  River  and  Harbor  Bill  passed  by  the 
last  Congress,  and  purposes  to  press  anew  ;  —  dare 
you  vote  against  your  owner,  Mr.  Shelby?" 

To  all  of  which,  reiterated  and  emphasized  in 
pamphlet,  broadside,  poster,  and  stump  speech, 
Shelby  said  publicly  never  a  word,  professing 
himself  a  believer  in  the  policy  of  dignified  si- 
lence. He  touched  the  matter  after  an  imper- 


122  THE    HENCHMAN 

sonal  fashion  with  Bowers,  however,  as  they  read 
the  onslaught. 

"  Give  me  the  liquor  habit,  the  tobacco  habit, 
the  opium  habit,  singly  or  all  together,"  said  he, 
"but  preserve  me  from  the  vice  of  rhetoric." 

Bowers  had  not  this  fine  detachment. 

"  I  don't  wish  to  nose  into  your  private  con- 
cerns, Ross,"  he  began,  with  visible  embarrass- 
ment, "  but  this  third  count  implicates  me.  I'd 
like  to  ask  whether  that  stock  I  sold  for  you  in 
Wall  Street  last  winter  was  yours  by  —  by  —  " 

"  By  bona  fide  purchase  ?  "  whipped  in  Shelby. 
"Yes,  sir;  out  and  out.  Do  you  think  me  as 
big  a  fool  as  this  dream-chaser  pretends  I  am  ? " 

"  No,  no." 

"  Nobody  should  know  better  than  you  why 
that  bill  was  introduced.  You  brought  it  to  me 
from  the  Boss.  Those  railway  people  forgot  that 
their  party  can't  run  campaigns  on  wind,  and  in 
his  own  way  he  jogged  their  memory.  I  saw  that. 
As  for  the  stock  —  your  skirts  are  clear.  You 
merely  sold  in  a  rising  market  what  I  bought  in 
a  falling  one.  If  my  position  gave  me  a  specula- 
tive advantage,  it's  my  own  business  —  nobody 
else's  —  not  even  the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers's." 

The  county  leader's  working  features  did  not 
resemble  General  Grant's.  In  that  unhappy 


THE    HENCHMAN  123 

moment  he  experienced  the  pangs  of  unhonored 
parenthood. 

Presently  he  put  out  his  hand. 

"  I'm  sorry  I  offended  you,  Ross.  I  supposed 
myself  too  seasoned  a  campaigner  to  mind  mud- 
slinging." 

Shelby  laughed  apologies  away  and  they  parted 
friends.  On  the  threshold  it  occurred  to  Bowers 
to  ask :  — 

"  Who  is  this  Dalgetty  fellow  Sprague  men- 
tions ?  I  never  heard  of  him  in  politics." 

"  Nor  I.  Some  ward  heeler  he  thinks  I  resem- 
ble, I  guess." 

"  He'd  have  made  his  point  stronger  by  taking 
somebody  that  the  plain  people  know.  That's 
something  mugwumps  never  learn." 

"  And  there's  another  thing  they  don't  grasp," 
Shelby  added.  "  One  personal  talk  with  the 
average  voter  will  outweigh  enough  high-toned 
editorials  to  sink  a  ship.  When  the  reformer 
begins  to  rub  shoulders  in  all  sorts  of  places  with 
all  sorts  of  men  his  halo  won't  be  so  luminous ; 
perhaps  he  won't  call  himself  a  reformer  at  all  — 
just  politician,  perhaps  ;  but  he'll  saw  wood." 


CHAPTER  II 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  independent  candidate 
did  give  the  shoulder-rubbing  process  a  trial. 
Within  the  by  no  means  contracted  limits  of 
Volney  Sprague's  paper-and-ink  horizon  the 
flurry  of  the  attack  on  Shelby  threw  its  ripples 
far,  but  Graves  shortly  damped  the  editor's  pro- 
fessional delight  by  the  remark  that  he  had  been 
assured  of  no  man's  vote  because  of  it. 

"  There's  the  pity  of  our  lack  of  time,"  frowned 
Sprague.  "  An  educational  campaign  can  hardly 
be  too  long.  Many  a  demagogue  has  failed  of 
election  because  we  vote  in  November  and  not  in 
dog-days." 

"You'll  have  to  admit  that  you've  merely 
revamped  old  material.  It's  no  news  that  Shelby 
has  packed  caucuses,  stolen  speeches,  blackmailed 
corporations,  jobbed  canal  contracts,  and  grovelled 
to  the  Boss." 

"  True,"  admitted  Sprague,  ruefully. 

"  We  need  the  concrete  to  convince.  Take 
this  canal  scandal  :  we've  seen  contracts  go  to 
Shelby's  adherents  on  unbalanced  bids,  and  the 

124 


THE    HENCHMAN  125 

Ditch  swarms  with  his  useless  inspectors  at  four 
dollars  a  day ;  but  can  you  bring  wrong-doing 
home  to  him  ?  " 

"  To  prove  the  Champion  of  Canals'  complicity 
—  what  a  master  stroke!" 

The  morning  after  he  popped  into  the  young 
man's  study,  to  the  lasting  detriment  of  a  triolet. 

"  We  can  prove  it,"  he  exclaimed.  "  Gad  ! 
We  can  prove  it ! " 

Graves  regretfully  dropped  a  blotter  over  his 
manuscript  and  advanced  a  chair. 

"  I've  suspected  that  there  were  men  in  this 
town  who  could  lay  Shelby  by  the  heels,  were  they 
to  tell  all  they  knew.  The  problem  was  to 
draw  them." 

"  You  can't  expect  his  understrappers  to 
quarrel  with  their  bread  and  butter." 

"  No ;  that  has  been  the  stone  of  stumbling 
precisely,  but  we've  got  around  it.  In  this 
blessed  case,  Shelby  himself  did  the  quarrelling, 
and  thereby  delivered  himself  into  our  hands." 

Bernard  Graves  sat  up. 

"  What  have  you  found  out  ? " 

"  I've  found  a  man  who  seems  to  know  of 
Shelby's  crookedness,  and  is  willing  to  tell  what 
he  knows." 

"  Well  ? " 


126  THE    HENCHMAN 

"Jap  Hinchey." 

Graves's  face  lengthened. 

"  That  beast,"  said  he. 

"  Did  you  expect  a  Sir  Galahad  for  such  a 
service  ? " 

"  What  would  the  word  of  such  a  man  avail  ?  " 

"  As  much  as  any  informer's ;  it  isn't  a  chival- 
rous office." 

"  Nor  is  ours  in  employing  it,  to  my  thinking ; 
informer  and  reformer  sound  perilously  near  alike. 
Still,  as  you  delicately  imply,  we're  not  Knights 
of  the  Round  Table.  What  has  the  sot  had  to 
say  to  you  ?  " 

"  Well,  the  fact  is  he  hasn't  told  me  anything 
specific,"  Sprague  had  to  admit.  "  The  matter  is 
still  under  negotiation,  as  one  may  say.  Jasper 
is  coy." 

"Oh!" 

The  lukewarm  monosyllable  voiced  disillusion- 
ment. With  a  partial  return  to  the  academic 
calm  of  his  normal  life  Bernard  Graves  candidly 
told  himself  that  the  actual  basis  of  his  resent- 
ment against  Shelby  was  trivial  ;  that  the  editor's 
outlook  on  politics  was  Quixotic,  not  to  say 
Micawberesque  ;  and  that  his  own  wisdom  in  ven- 
turing for  such  a  cause,  with  such  a  pilot,  on  such 
uncharted  seas,  was  questionable  to  a  degree. 


THE    HENCHMAN 


127 


Sprague  was  not  devoid  of  intuition. 

"  I'm  not  rainbow-hunting  this  time,"  he  put 
in  quickly.  "  The  fellow  knows  something  inter- 
esting, and  he's  ready  to  out  with  it.  He  was 
employed  in  the  Eureka  quarries  during  the  canal 
improvement,  and  saw  things,  he  says,  that  we 
would  like  to  hear." 

"  You  talked  with  him  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  he  accosted  me  in  a  side  street  late  last 
night." 

"  If  he's  anxious  to  inform  and  reform,  why 
doesn't  he  ?  I  don't  like  the  look  of  it.  What 
does  he  want  ?  " 

"You." 

"  He  wants  me  ?  " 

"  He  said  he  would  speak  plainly  with  you." 

Graves's  revulsion  was  fairly  physical. 

"  You  manage  it,  Volney,"  he  entreated.  "  You 
will  know  how." 

Sprague  shook  his  head. 

"  He  was  positive  on  that  point.  It  must  be 
you  or  nobody." 

"  I  doubt  if  it's  worth  while." 

The  editor  lost  patience. 

"  It  was  you  who  reminded  me  that  we  lacked 
the  concrete.  Now  I  offer  it  to  you." 

"  But  in  such  a  shape  ! " 


128  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Can  you  quibble  over  that  —  and  in  politics  ?  " 

"  No  one  who  knows  Jap  Hinchey's  character 
would  believe  him  under  oath." 

Sprague's  reply  was  astute. 

"  I'm  thinking  of  those  who  don't  know  him," 
said  he.  "  The  district  is  wide." 

"  And  an  affidavit  is  an  affidavit  ?  "  His  smile 
was  sardonic.  "  Very  well.  I'll  see  him.  What 
is  Jap's  At  Home  ?  " 

"  You  will  find  him  fishing  ofF  the  dock  behind 
his  shanty,  probably.  I'd  follow  this  thing  up 
promptly,  Bernard." 

"Yes,"  promised  the  candidate,  listlessly.  "I 
will." 

Alone,  he  fingered  his  manuscript,  read  it 
drearily,  and  of  a  sudden  tore  it  into  little  bits, 
the  mood  which  gendered  it  gone  beyond  recall. 
The  sordid  necessity  of  seeing  Hinchey  taught 
him  afresh  the  folly  of  his  dabbling  in  politics  at 
all,  and  his  whole  being  revolted  against  the  con- 
tact with  humanity  in  the  raw  which  even  mug- 
wumpery  seemed  to  entail.  Left  to  himself, 
Sprague  might  have  headed  his  own  John  Brown 
raid  into  the  established  order  of  things ;  led  it 
with  brilliancy  perhaps,  in  any  case  with  honest 
zeal.  Yet  the  root  of  his  discontent  struck  rather 
deeper  than  Jasper  Hinchey  and  the  cold  waterish 


THE   HENCHMAN  129 

zone  of  reform;  Ruth  had  her  part  in  it.  He 
somehow  reasoned  that  his  course  merited  her 
approval  and  encouragement ;  it  had  met  with 
banter.  So  gyved,  lagged  the  hope  of  the  inde- 
pendents to  his  task. 

Few  towns,  however  small,  lack  their  moral 
plague-spot,  and  Graves's  errand  bent  him  toward 
New  Babylon's,  a  web  of  alleys  styled  the  Flats, 
spun  behind  the  business  centre  among  the  docks 
and  rotting  warehouses  of  a  vanished  commerce. 
The  Flats  had  its  business  too  —  groggeries  and 
a  music  hall  where  "sacred  concerts"  were  given 
on  Sunday  nights  and  men  had  been  stabbed  on 
pay-day  ;  groggeries,  the  music  hall  —  and  worse. 
The  young  man  threaded  gingerly  into  its  dingy 
precincts,  and  by  dint  of  a  handful  of  Italian, 
picked  up  in  a  Roman  winter's  sojourn  to  be 
oddly  practised  on  a  local  washerwoman  sousing 
gay  garments  in  the  amber  fluid  of  the  Erie 
Canal,  he  singled  out  the  Hinchey  hovel  from  the 
squalid  score  it  resembled.  Before  the  sagging 
threshold  tumbled  a  many-complexioned  brood 
of  children,  —  they  seemed  a  very  dozen,  —  and 
in  the  doorway,  with  arms  akimbo  and  hands  on 
massive  hips,  gaped  Jap's  mulatto  wife,  for  of 
such  measure  was  the  man.  Graves  crossed  the 
alley,  suppressing  such  of  his  five  senses  as  he 


i3o  THE    HENCHMAN 

could  shift  without,  and  ascertained  that  the 
degenerate  Jasper,  true  to  prophecy,  was  fishing 
from  the  dock  in  the  rear. 

"  Good  afternoon,"  said  the  caller,  affably,  he 
thought. 

Jasper  grunted  without  lifting  his  eyes  from 
his  float. 

"  What  do  you  catch  here  ? "  pursued  the 
candidate,  beaming  good-fellowship. 

The  line  suddenly  drew  taut,  and  a  muddy  fish 
whipped  through  the  sunshine  within  a  scant 
inch  of  Graves's  nose. 

"  Bullheads,"  answered  the  laconic  Hinchey. 

The  visitor  was  disconcerted. 

"  You  —  er  — eat  them  ? "  he  remarked  blankly, 
eyeing  first  the  beery-looking  water  and  then  the 
ugly  fish. 

"  Naw,"  sneered  Jap.  "  I'm  foundin'  'n 
'quarium."  He  tossed  the  bullhead  into  a  pail, 
and,  spying  a  piccaninny  scudding  round  a  cor- 
ner, called :  "  Here,  you  chocolate  drop,  take  this 
yer  fish  ter  yer  mammy.  Two  mor,'  'n'  I'll  hev 
'nuff  fer  supper.  Set  down,"  he  added  to  his  guest. 

"  Thanks,"  said  Bernard,  hunting  vainly  for 
a  clean  spot  on  the  string-piece.  He  lit  a  ciga- 
rette as  a  sanitary  precaution,  and  bethought  him 
to  offer  one  to  Hinchey. 


THE    HENCHMAN  131 

"  None  o'  them  coffin-nails  fer  me,"  declined 
the  Spartan.  "  I  smokes  men's  terbacker." 

Graves  gave  him  a  cigar  which  he  chanced  to 
have  about  him. 

"  I  don't  seem  to  have  a  match  left,"  he  ob- 
served, fumbling  in  his  pockets. 

Jasper  Hinchey  calmly  relieved  him  of  his 
cigarette,  lit  his  cigar  with  it,  and  restored  the 
costly  importation,  malodorous  of  fish.  At  the 
earliest  opportunity  Graves  dropped  it  in 
the  canal,  a  transaction  duly  noted  by  Jap. 

"  I've  been  told  you  have  something  to  say 
to  me,"  the  young  man  said  briskly,  his  social 
obligations  seeming  fully  paid,  and  his  eagerness 
to  be  gone  swamping  diplomacy. 

Jasper  rebaited  his  hook,  impaling  the  wrig- 
gling earthworm  with  a  solicitude  worthy  of  com- 
parison with  Isaac  Walton's  refined  martyrdom 
of  frogs. 

"  Yes,"  he  drawled ;  "  I  kind  o'  'magine  I 
hev." 

Bernard  curbed  his  impatience  while  Jap  spat 
with  deadly  aim  at  an  eddying  chip. 

"  S'pose  you  know  I've  knocked  round  in 
pol'tics  some  ? " 

The  young  man  said  that  he  did.  He 
thought  "  knocked  "  a  felicitous  word.  Jasper 


132  THE    HENCHMAN 

Hinchey's  public  services  had  been  heavy-fisted, 
relating  chiefly  to  voting  blocks  of  drunken 
Poles  and  Italians  in  warmly  contested  town 
elections. 

"  I've  helped  'lect  mor'n  one  feller  t'  office  in 
my  day.  Take  Ross  Shelby  now :  both  times 
he  run  fer  th'  'Sembly  I  worked  like  a  nailer. 
'Cause  why  ?  He  done  right  by  me.  Why  I 
Juved  that  cuss  like  —  like  —  "  he  hesitated  for 
a  simile  —  "like  my  own  son,"  he  added,  with 
the  passing  of  one  of  his  brood,  and  forthwith 
whacked  the  youngster  for  overturning  the  bait 
can.  "  Jes'  like  my  own  son.  An'  so  I  should 
still  ef  he  hedn't  done  me  dirt ;  ef  he'd  ben 
square.  Now,  you're  square." 

"  I  try  to  be,"  returned  Bernard,  ravished  by 
the  tribute.  "  That's  my  platform  in  this  cam- 
paign, you  know." 

"Yes;  jes'  so.  An'  I  rather  'magine  I'll  vote 
yer  way." 

"  Thank  you." 

"  Pro-vi-ded,"  Jasper  added,  "  pro-vi-ded  we 
c'n  'range  things." 

"  Arrange  things  ?  " 

Jasper's  eyes  wandered  musingly  over  his  in- 
terlocutor's face. 

"'Range    things,  I    sez,  an'   I    sez   it   again." 


THE    HENCHMAN 

He  abandoned  something  of  his  drawl.  "  I 
'magine  I  c'd  tell  sumpin  ef  I  tuk  a  notion." 

Graves  brooked  his  tone  with  difficulty. 

"  I  shouldn't  be  here  if  I  didn't  think  so  too," 
he  answered  coolly. 

"Jes'  so,"  agreed  Jasper,  absorbed  in  a  sinker. 
"  I  c'd  tell  sumpin  erbout  a  party  thet  I  'magine 
you'd  cock  yer  ear  t'  hear." 

"  Shelby  ? " 

"  I  'magine  I  didn't  jes'  quite  say.  No,  I 
'magine  not." 

"  If  you  will  exercise  your  imagination  less, 
Mr.  Hinchey,  and  say  plainly  what  you  have 
to  say,  I  shall  be  obliged,"  retorted  Bernard, 
exasperated  by  his  shiftiness. 

Jasper  was  unmoved. 

"  Easy  t'  see  you  ain't  ben  in  pol'tics  long. 
Wall,  whut  I've  got  t'  say  is  this :  I  used  t' 
work  fer  this  party  off 'n'  on,  —  this  party  whose 
name  I  ain't  a-mentionin'.  He  wuz  in  pol'tics 
too.  Likewise  run  a  quarry  an'  s'm'other  things 
t'  num'rous  t'  mention.  'Twas  in  the  quarry 
I  worked,  mostly  erbout  'lection  time.  Cur'ous, 
ain't  it,  whut  good  pay  a  feller'll  git  fer  light 
work  erbout  'lection  time  ?  Wall,  this  year  I 
ain't  hed  proper  treatment.  This  party  'lows 
money  is  tight,  an'  he's  filled  his  quarry  up  with 


i34  THE    HENCHMAN 

dagoes,  damned  dagoes."  He  paused  to  scowl 
over  the  shanties  of  his  immediate  neighbors  and 
at  the  industrious  washerwoman  up  the  dock. 
"  Wouldn't  it  make  you  sick  th'  way  furrin  labor's 
a-crowdin'  out  th'  true  'Merican  ?  I  jes'  despise 
dagoes." 

Graves  was  too  disgusted  to  reply.  He  recol- 
lected having  heard  a  negro  speak  contemptu- 
ously of  Jews,  but  this  case  seemed  yet  more 
extreme. 

"  Wall,"  pursued  the  true  American,  "  I  wuz 
with  this  party  a  spell  when  th'  state  tuk  a 
notion  t'  sink  a  few  s'perfluous  millyuns  in  this 
ole  ditch." 

The  listener  became  all  attention. 

"  Queer  doin's  I  seen  long  erbout  then.  Con- 
tractors is  a  scand'lous  lot.  Many's  the  load  o' 
dirt  I  seen  hauled  out  thet  easy,  whut  th'  state 
paid  fer  ez  blasted  rock.  My,  yes.  But  my 
party  wuzn't  workin'  at  contractin' ;  he  wuz 
workin'  at  contractors^  an'  he  knew  'em,  lock, 
stock,  and  bar'l.  He  jes'  owned  th'  whole  blim 
pack.  Thet's  where  his  rake-off  come  in. 
'Twant  all  dirt  them  daisies  tuk  out.  There 
wuz  as  fustclass  sandstun  ez  my  party  ever 
shipped  f'm  his  quarry,  an'  f'm  his  quarry 
docks  it  went." 


THE    HENCHMAN  135 

"You  mean  that  this  man  connived  with  the 
contractors  to  misappropriate  state  property  ?  " 

"  I  'magine  I  do." 

"  And  your  party  is  Shelby  ?  " 

"  Never  said  no  sech  thing." 

"  It's  what  you  imply  clearly  enough.  Now, 
if  you  wish  to  help  us,  as  you  told  Mr.  Sprague, 
you  must  say  precisely  who  and  what  you  mean, 
and  swear  to  it  before  Mr.  Sprague,  who  is  a 
notary  public." 

Jasper  straightened. 

"  Fer  nothin'  ?  "     His  tone  was  inimitable. 

Bernard  Graves  looked  him  coldly  in  the  eye. 

"  We're  not  bribing  people." 

The  loafer  raised  his  hulking  body  and  leered 
over  him ;  the  young  man  got  upon  his  feet,  half 
expecting  assault. 

"  Anything  we  can  do  for  you  in  a  legitimate 
way,  we  will  do,"  he  added  steadily. 

"  I  want  t'  know." 

"  You  can  find  me  at  Mr.  Sprague's  office  any 
morning  between  ten  and  twelve." 

Jasper  Hinchey  surveyed  him  with  scorn  as 
he  turned  to  go.  Fumbling  in  his  rags,  he  ex- 
tracted a  greasy  card. 

"  P'r'aps  you'd  buy  a  twenty-five  cent  ticket 
fer  th'  Jolly  Rovers'  picnic,"  he  insinuated. 


136  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Mebbe  it's  not  too  stiff  fer  yer  purse.  They 
say  ez  how  'tis  well  lined,  Mr.  Graves." 

"  Do  you  know  that  the  Penal  Code  makes 
soliciting  a  candidate  to  buy  tickets  a  misde- 
meanor ? " 

Hinchey  smirked. 

"  A  party  whut  I  know  buys  'em  without 
askin',"  said  he. 

Jasper  Hinchey  did  not  call  at  the  Whig  office 
any  morning  between  ten  o'clock  and  twelve.  It 
developed  that  he  was  engaged  in  some  not  too 
arduous  labor  at  the  quarries  of  the  Eureka  Sand- 
stone Company. 


CHAPTER   III 

HAD  the  fantastic  bolt  of  the  Sprague  clique 
been  left  to  its  own  courses,  Shelby  would  have 
borrowed  no  further  trouble,  but  a  fortuitous 
matter  of  radishes  and  ice-water  suddenly  put  the 
quarrel  on  an  altogether  different  level.  About 
the  hour  when  Bernard  Graves  hobnobbed  with 
Jasper  Hinchey,  the  third  factor  in  the  Demijohn 
District's  political  muddle  sat  down  to  dinner 
in  a  neighboring  city.  "Chuck"  O'Rourke  was 
fond  of  his  dinner.  A  childhood  of  squalid  pov- 
erty had  taught  him  the  joy  of  a  square  meal. 
The  story  of  the  years  linking  the  famished  boy 
to  the  pudgy  red-faced  man  of  the  restaurant  is 
unessential,  —  an  everyday  story,  sordid,  and  bar- 
ren of  romance.  The  present  knew  him  for  a 
prosperous  contractor  and  politician  whose  most 
conspicuous  public  service  had  been  the  adroit 
fashioning  of  Tuscarora  County's  minority  party 
into  a  compact  organization,  to  which  the  majority 
party  found  it  expedient  to  cast  an  occasional  sop 
of  patronage.  He  had  lived  and  thrived  in  an 
atmosphere  of  deals.  Only  within  the  fortnight 

137 


138  THE    HENCHMAN 

had  he  aspired  to  hold  office,  since  his  party  had 
for  years  lacked  the  righting  chance  which  the 
revolt  against  Shelby  created.  Tempted  at  last, 
he  abruptly  resolved  to  enter  the  congressional 
race  himself,  and  this  same  day  had  effected  the 
last  dicker  with  other  county  leaders  which  would 
insure  his  naming  in  to-morrow's  convention. 

The  day  had  gone  unwontedly  sultry,  with  a 
sudden  flushing  of  autumn  with  dog-day  heat, 
and  his  active  morning  had  been  fraught  with 
physical  discomfort.  He  had  consumed  quanti- 
ties of  beer  and  whiskey  in  his  rounds,  and  had 
looked  upon  the  wine  when  it  was  red.  His 
heavy  fall  suit  was  a  weariness,  and  as  he  entered 
the  restaurant  he  loosed  his  checked  waistcoat, 
unveiling  a  row  of  diamond  shirt  studs  which 
galvanized  the  languid  waiters  to  buoyant  life. 
He  was  escorted  with  pomp  and  circumstance 
to  a  seat  in  the  shadiest  window,  swept  by  the 
torrid  breath  of  an  electric  fan. 

O'Rourke  gulped  a  glassful  of  ice-water  as  he 
studied  the  menu  card,  and  motioned  for  more. 
Two  other  glassfuls  went  the  way  of  the  first,  and 
the  negro  refilled  the  carafe.  The  man  pulled 
angrily  at  his  limp  collar  and  discussed  his  order. 
Vacillating  for  a  time  between  broiled  lobster  and 
porterhouse  steak  with  mushrooms,  he  cut  the 


THE   HENCHMAN  139 

matter  short  by  taking  both,  and  buttressed  the 
main  structure  of  the  meal  with  side  dishes  of 
banana  fritters  and  griddle-cakes.  He  decided 
that  peach  short-cake  and  tutti-frutti  ice  cream 
would  stop  the  gap  for  desert,  and  expressed  a 
preference  for  "  fizz  "  as  he  scanned  the  wine  list. 
With  a  happy  afterthought  he  recalled  the  fleet- 
ing waiter  and  ordered  him  to  fetch  a  cocktail  as 
an  appetizer. 

The  ice-water  carafe  was  within  easy  reach,  and, 
pending  the  coming  of  the  cocktail,  it  lowered 
steadily.  Hard  by,  also,  stood  a  dish  of  radishes, 
out  of  season,  but  succulent.  He  cleared  the 
dish,  and  meditated  assault  on  its  fellow  at  the 
table  adjoining.  However,  the  brave  advance 
of  the  lobster,  the  porterhouse,  and  the  cham- 
pagne bucket  diverted  him,  and  he  tucked  a  nap- 
kin under  his  flabby  chin  with  a  genial  smile. 
Then  the  smile  shrivelled ;  waiters,  porterhouse, 
lobster,  champagne,  winked  out  in  utter  blackness, 
and  Chuck  O'Rourke  slid  heavily  to  the  floor. 

The  dead  man's  associates  met  the  emergency 
with  a  sharp  move.  The  following  morning 
Shelby  caught  a  persistent  rumor  that  the  con- 
vention, wanting  its  slated  candidate,  proposed 
to  indorse  the  candidacy  of  Bernard  Graves ; 
which  same  thing,  after  a  moving  tribute  to 


140  THE    HENCHMAN 

the  fallen  leader,  the  convention  with  cheerful 
promptness  did. 

The  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers  was  unnerved.  He 
had  had  to  cope  with  no  such  outrageous  problem 
in  the  whole  of  his  honorable  career,  and  in  a 
state  of  mind  bordering  panic  he  packed  his  grip 
and  posted  to  New  York  for  a  conference  with 
the  Boss,  leaving  Shelby  to  temporize  as  best 
he  might.  Nor  was  Shelby  inactive.  The 
O'Rourke  crowd  had  been  placated  in  small  mat- 
ters times  out  of  mind,  and  he  went  about  the 
present  task  in  the  usual  way,  directing  one  of 
his  people  to  inquire  what  they  wanted.  These 
hitherto  insatiate  gentlemen  replied  that  they 
wanted  nothing,  adding  pleasantly  that  they  were 
well  content  with  what  they  had.  The  possibility 
of  a  victory  in  a  gerrymandered  district,  however 
won,  was  without  price.  Shelby  appreciated  their 
point  of  view  and  addressed  himself  to  measures 
more  feasible.  If  he  could  not  shake  their  alle- 
giance to  Graves,  he  might  succeed  in  preventing 
Graves  from  taking  up  with  them,  and  the  agen- 
cies for  influencing  public  opinion  which  he  could 
control  began  accordingly  to  ridicule  the  idea  of 
a  reform  candidate's  accepting  such  an  indorse- 
ment. 

Graves  refused  to  be  drawn,  and  for  forty-eight 


THE    HENCHMAN  141 

hours  held  his  peace  with  the  aplomb  of  a  veteran. 
Then  Bowers  came  back. 

"  Has  he  accepted  ?  "  The  words  were  out 
before  he  could  take  Shelby's  hand. 

"Not  yet." 

"  Thank  heaven.    Tell  me  what  you've  done." 

Shelby  recapitulated. 

"That's  right,"  approved  his  senior.  "There's 
nothing  more  to  be  done  with  Chuck  O'Rourke's 
bandits  just  now.  Graves  is  the  man  to  consider. 
Is  he  still  mum  ?  " 

"  As  a  cigar  sign.  How  does  the  Boss  take 
it?" 

<f  Urbanely,  as  always.  He's  silkier  every 
time  I  see  him."  Bowers's  memory  lingered 
upon  the  soft-spoken,  interview  with  the  great 
state  leader. 

"  Well  ?  "  Shelby  jogged  him  crisply. 

"  He  knows  all  about  Graves  —  as  he  knows 
about  everybody.  Says  he  has  met  the  scholar 
in  politics  before.  Do  you  remember  how  he 
took  care  of  that  kid-gloved  aggregation  which 
tried  to  run  him  out  of  business  a  year  or  so  ago  ? 
He  dumped  this  distinguished  kicker  into  the  cabi- 
net, had  another  made  a  plenipotentiary,  foisted 
off  number  three  into  some  windy  commission  on 
the  other  side  of  the  planet,  and  so  on  down  the 


i42  THE   HENCHMAN 

list.  They  said  it  seemed  to  be  in  the  air  that 
harmony  should  prevail." 

Shelby  laughed. 

"  The  Boss  is  the  smoothest  made,"  he  owned. 
"  What  does  he  advise  in  this  case  ?  " 

Bowers  leaned  forward  importantly. 

"  What  do  you  think  the  young  man  would 
say  to  an  author's  job  —  some  French  or  Italian 
consulate  ? " 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  I  say  :  if  the  Boss  advised 
that,  he's  growing  senile." 

"  I  didn't  say  he  advised  it.  He  merely  sug- 
gested that  literary  people  bit  at  that  kind  of  bait. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  didn't  advise  anything. 
He  said  if  we  couldn't  fix  things  with  the 
O'Rourke  crowd,  that  the  situation  would  have 
to  develop  a  bit." 

"  Queer  sort  of  talk,"  Shelby  commented.  "  I 
wonder  what  he  wants  ? "  He  puzzled  over  it 
a  moment.  "  Well,  whatever  develops,  don't 
talk  consulate  to  Bernard  Graves.  The  Boss  is  a 
pastmaster  at  side-tracking  soreheads,  but  there's 
a  point  involved  in  this  case  that  he  doesn't  grasp. 
Disappointed  lovers  are  probably  out  of  his  line." 

Bowers  shifted  his  cigar  to  reply,  but  thought 
better  of  it.  His  hold  on  the  wheel  was  weaken- 
ing, and  he  remarked  to  his  wife  that  night  that 


THE    HENCHMAN  143 

this  should  be  his  last  active  campaign.  Shelby 
entertained  a  similar  opinion. 

When  the  two  men  met  on  the  morrow  the  sit- 
uation had  indeed  developed.  Persuaded  against 
his  own  judgment  by  Volney  Sprague,  Bernard 
Graves  had  consented  to  assume  the  mantle  of 
Chuck  O'Rourke,  deceased.  To  the  repressed 
amusement  of  his  new  allies,  he  stipulated  that 
the  employment  of  questionable  methods  should 
be  left  to  the  common  foe,  and  that  they  must 
accept  him  absolutely  unpledged. 

Shelby  ran  a  gauntlet  of  chaff  to  his  law  office 
that  afternoon,  and  found  Bowers  awaiting  him  in 
bilious  mood.  He  was  hazing  the  rooms  with 
gusts  of  tobacco  smoke,  a  sign  of  nervousness  in 
so  deliberate  a  smoker.  They  nodded  curtly 
without  words,  and  Shelby  ran  perfunctorily 
through  his  mail.  Presently  he  raised  his  eyes 
and  met  Bowers's  gloomy  scrutiny  lowering 
through  the  fog. 

"  You  look  like  a  hired  mourner,"  he  re- 
marked, swirling  the  smoke. 

"  I  feel  like  a  real  one." 

"  Well,  don't  wear  your  weeds  so  conspicu- 
ously. The  enemy  will  imagine  they  have  us 
scared." 

Bowers  swore  listlessly. 


I44  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  They  have." 

"  Don't  include  me.  I've  a  little  sand  left,  I 
hope." 

"  It's  the  most  serious  fight  we've  ever  had  in 
the  district.  It's  so  unexpected.  And  I  can't 
see  how  we  are  to  blame.  The  organization 
backed  your  nomination  cordially.  We  couldn't 
foresee  that  Volney  Sprague  would  make  trouble, 
any  more  than  we  could  know  that  O'Rourke 
would  gorge  himself  to  apoplexy.  And  who,  for 
the  love  of  heaven,  would  have  thought  Bernard 
Graves  would  step  into  Chuck  O'Rourke's  shoes! 
I've  been  in  politics  for  thirty  years,  Ross,  with 
my  fair  share  of  good  luck  and  bad,  but  I've 
never  been  up  against  the  equal  of  this.  It's  — 
it's  — "  He  broke  off  in  despair  of  adequate 
characterization. 

"  Brace  up,  brace  up.  You  need  a  brandy  and 
soda." 

"  I've  had  two." 

"  Then  take  a  glass  of  milk,"  rallied  Shelby ; 
"paregoric,  boneset  tea,  anything.  I'm  ashamed 
of  you." 

Bowers  smiled  wanly. 

"You're  a  younger  man,  Ross.  You  can  re- 
bound. I  can't  any  more.  I'm  too  old.  I  — 
I've  lost  confidence  in  myself." 


THE    HENCHMAN  145 

"  I  haven't  lost  confidence  in  myself,"  ejacu- 
lated Shelby.  "  No  such  alliance  of  thugs  and 
goody-goods  shall  down  me.  I'm  in  this  game 
to  stay  and  to  win." 

His  stout  words  in  some  degree  bolstered  the 
discouraged  veteran,  and  they  turned  presently  to 
a  discussion  of  ways  and  means.  The  outlook 
was  not  cheering.  The  fusion  of  the  opposition 
had  fallen  at  a  time  when  the  funds  collected  to 
meet  the  exigencies  of  an  ordinary  campaign  had 
been  mainly  expended. 

"  The  State  Committee  must  help,"  declared 
Shelby.  "  There's  no  valid  reason  why  they 
shouldn't.  The  corporations  have  given  them 
everything  they  asked  this  year." 

"  I  sounded  the  Boss.  He  was  not  encour- 
aging." 

"Damn  him,"  said  Shelby,  "what  does  he 
want  ?  "  That  question  would  recur. 

"  We  have  raised  everything  locally  that 
our  people  will  stand,  and  you  may  say  that 
of  the  Demijohn  generally.  If  there's  more 
to  be  got,  it  must  come  from  those  most  con- 
cerned." 

"  You  mean  me,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"  It's  your  political  future  that's  at  stake." 

Shelby  drummed  his  desk.     By  and  by,  taking 


146  THE    HENCHMAN 

his  check-book,  he  began  to  run  through  the 
stubs,  jotting  figures  on  a  pad. 

"  I've  spent  three  thousand  dollars  already," 
he  said  at  last.  "  Three  thousand  legitimate  dol- 
lars. I'ye  never  footed  it  up  before,  and  it's 
rather  staggering.  Of  course,  the  big  items  — 
the  assessments  of  the  local  committee  and  the 
other  county  committees  —  I  had  kept  in  mind. 
What  I  have'  not  realized  was  the  constant  drain 
of  small  amounts  for  this  and  that,  —  printing, 
lithographs,  bands,  flag-raisings,  you  know  what. 
And  treats  —  why,  I  spent  over  seventy-five  dol- 
lars in  bar  money  alone  the  day  of  the  Pioneers' 
picnic,  while  the  County  Fair  meant  the  price 
of  a  good  horse.  It's  a  good  thing  for  me  that 
the  torchlight  idiocy  has  gone  out.  Still,  the 
*  Shelby  Base-ball  Club '  is  as  big  a  nuisance. 
Three  thousand  legitimate  dollars,"  he  repeated. 
"We  now  come  to  the  illegitimate." 

The  older  man  winced.  Shelby  was  too  frank 
for  him  at  times.  While  he  recognized  that 
vote-buying  was  of  occasion  necessary  for  party 
success,  he  made  it  his  boast  between  his  con- 
science and  himself  that  he  had  never  directly 
taken  part  in  it.  So  now  he  hemmed,  and 
merely  said :  — 

"  We're  fighting  a  mercenary  foe." 


THE    HENCHMAN  147 

Shelby  bent  for  an  instant  to  his  figures. 
Then,  with  offhand  abruptness  :  — 

"  There's  something  I  never  told  you.  When 
I  went  into  this  campaign  I  mortgaged  my  real 
estate  holdings  here  in  town.  I  tell  you  now 
because  I  must  negotiate  a  loan  on  my  share  in 
the  Eureka,  and  of  course  you  are  the  man  to 
approach." 

Bowers  started. 

"  Is  it  that  bad,  Ross  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  it's  that  bad.  Money's  the  argument 
now." 

"Suppose  —  suppose  you  lose?" 

Shelby  considered  the  possibility. 

"Then  I'm  ruined.  But  I  shan't  lose.  I 
shall  win." 

There  was  less  buoyancy  when  Bowers  had 
left ;  more  studying  of  the  check-book,  much  re- 
flection and  calculation.  Money,  money,  money  ; 
the  thought  hounded  him. 

Down  in  the  Temple  carriage  drive  the  worried 
man  could  see  a  boy  holding  a  mettlesome  saddle 
horse,  caparisoned  for  a  woman's  use.  In  fair 
weather  it  stood  there  at  this  hour  every  day. 
To-day  it  was  suggestive.  Shelby  sprang  to  his 
telephone. 


CHAPTER   IV 

With  the  stable  boy's  assurance  that  within 
ten  minutes  his  horse  would  stand  at  the  curb, 
Shelby  locked  his  door  against  surprise,  and, 
with  an  eye  on  the  Temple  driveway,  made  a 
rapid  change  to  his  riding  clothes,  which  he  was 
accustomed  to  keep  by  him  for  emergencies.  As 
he  finished,  Ruth,  lissome  in  her  black  habit, 
cantered  daintily  out  with  a  laughing  nod  to 
Volney  Sprague,  who  was  watching  her  from  the 
Whig  office  over  the  way.  His  clerk  was  absent 
serving  papers  in  Etruria,  and,  hanging  a  menda- 
cious "  Back-in-i-Hour  "  sign  on  his  outer  door, 
Shelby  leaped  down  the  stair. 

In  the  public  eye  he  grew  more  sedate,  and 
trotted  soberly  out  of  the  business  district  in  a 
direction  contrary  to  that  taken  by  his  neighbor. 
Then,  of  a  sudden,  he  shamed  John  Gilpin  with 
a  right-about,  and,  circling  by  side  streets  and 
quiet  lanes  the  course  he  had  just  covered,  gal- 
loped countryward  in  pursuit.  The  manoeuvre 
was  not  new  to  him.  He  had  employed  it  on 
occasion  to  hoodwink  Mrs.  Grundy  for  Mrs, 

148 


THE    HENCHMAN  149 

Milliard's  sake,  scrupulously  meeting  and  leav- 
ing the  lady  outside  the  corporation  limits,  a 
ruse  which  deceived  nobody  save  the  deceivers. 
Nor  was  it  effective  now.  Ruth  passed  Mrs. 
Bowers's  argus-eyed  bay  window,  as  did  Shelby, 
and  Mrs.  Grundy  had  her  speculative  pickings 
of  the  event. 

Ruth  spied  pursuit  where  the  turnpike  elbowed 
sharply  from  the  outskirts.  For  a  demure  girl 
her  smile  was  mischievous.  Walking  her  wiry 
little  pony  till  the  footfalls  of  Shelby's  chestnut 
cob  beat  the  'pike  a  scant  hundred  yards  behind, 
she  flicked  her  animal  ever  so  lightly  with  her 
riding  crop.  The  man  saw  a  puff  of  dust,  a 
twinkle  of  little  hoofs,  and  a  lithe  figure  outlined 
for  an  instant  against  the  autumn  sky  as  it  sped 
over  a  hill  and  far  away.  The  cob  labored  to 
the  crest  and  pondered  his  defeat.  A  half-mile 
down  the  unkempt  old  toll  road,  where  the 
goldenrod  dropped  stately  bows  to  the  purple 
aster,  and  Bouncing  Bet  viewed  their  livelong 
philandering  with  scorn,  was  the  impertinent 
runt  —  walking!  Down  thundered  the  cob. 
No  evasion  now.  Two  hundred  yards,  one 
fifty,  one  hundred  yards,  seventy-five,  sixty, 
even  fifty  —  and  again  the  pursued  was  spirited 
away  in  a  cloud. 


i5o  THE    HENCHMAN 

Shelby  bore  it  thrice,  and  raised  his  voice. 
Ruth's  surprise  was  a  delightful  thing  to  see. 

"  I've  tried  these  three  miles  to  overtake  you," 
he  scolded.  "  You  must  have  heard  me." 

Ruth  surveyed  the  smoking  cob. 

"  We  did  hear  a  noise.  My  pony  is  so 
restive." 

"  The  little  beast  looks  as  demure  as  yourself. 
I  believe  you  knew  it  was  I." 

Ruth's  glance  swept  a  neighboring  field. 

"  Have  you  ever  associated  cabbages  with 
beauty  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Just  look  at  that  reach 
of  blue-green." 

Shelby  admired  obediently.  Then,  the  occa- 
sion seeming  to  demand  a  certain  finesse,  he 
said :  — 

"  There's  a  man  out  this  way  I  must  look  up 
—  a  kind  of  farmer,  drover,  and  jockey  rolled  in 
one.  He  influences  a  bunch  of  votes.  It's 
very  pleasant  to  find  you  riding  the  same  way. 
I'm  glad  we  met  —  that  is  —  if  you  —  " 

Her  smile  stopped  his  limping  improvisation 
in  mid-career. 

"You  needn't  invent  anything  more,"  she  said. 
"  You're  not  good  at  it." 

"  There  really  is  such  a  man,"  he  defended, 
with  a  contented  laugh  ;  "  but  he  can  wait.  I'd 


THE    HENCHMAN  151 

like  to  be  quit  of  the  political  grind  for  a  while. 
May  I  rest  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  you  may  come,"  Ruth  decided. 

His  appeal  struck  a  womanly  chord. 

October  was  spendthrift  of  its  pigments. 
Every  isolated  copse  was  a  mimic  forest  fire, 
each  bivouacked  corn-field  a  russet  foil,  the  air 
a  heady  wine.  Shelby  thrilled  with  dumb  pas- 
torals and  a  vague  longing  to  do  and  speak  in 
keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  scene.  A  tuft  of 
oxeye  daisies  in  the  shelter  of  a  ruinous  worm 
fence  attracted  him,  and  he  reined  the  cob  from 
the  highway  to  fetch  them.  To  his  bewilder- 
ment Ruth's  face  shadowed  at  the  gift. 

"  Poor  things  —  what  made  you  ?  "  she  la- 
mented. "  I've  watched  them  there  for  a  fort- 
night. What  clumsy  florist  could  have  grouped 
them  with  the  tall  grasses  so  exquisitely,  and  set 
the  little  red  vine  clambering  over  all  in  the  fence 
corner,  so  satiny  and  lichen-gray  ?  " 

Shelby  was  mystified. 

"  I  thought  that  they  would  look  smart  in 
your  belt  —  that  all  women  wanted  to  pick 
flowers  when  they  saw  them  — "  he  stammered. 
"  I'm  afraid  I  know  little  of  women's  ways." 

Her  laugh  was  a  caress. 

"  Don't  put  my  rudeness  upon  the  sex,"  she 


i52  THE    HENCHMAN 

said.  "  It's  because  I  dabble  in  paints  and  things 
that  I  thought  of  these  flowers  first  as  a  picture. 
But  I  assure  you  I'm  just  as  much  given  to 
plundering  them  to  set  of?  my  hair  and  dress 
as  any  daughter  of  Eve,"  wherewith  she  placed 
his  offering,  as  he  would  have  it,  in  her  belt.  He 
seemed  to  her  always  a  kind  of  shorn  Samson 
when  afield  from  politics,  and  now,  as  she  had 
often  done,  she  drew  him  to  speak  of  what  he 
knew  best. 

"  I  used  to  think  you  cared  little  about  such 
things,"  he  told  her  presently.  "  The  average 
woman  doesn't  care  greatly.  If  she  had  the 
ballot,  she'd  probably  vote  for  the  handsomest 
man  —  if  the  candidate  was  a  man." 

"I'm  afraid  I  should,"  owned  Ruth.  "For 
instance,  I  never  could  vote  for  a  candidate  with 
mutton-chop  whiskers.  And  fancy  having  to 
decide  between  two  women  !  " 

"  Vote-buying  would  have  a  scope  which 
staggers  the  imagination." 

The  comment  set  her  thoughts  running  on 
the  accusations  of  corruption  which  were  bandied 
from  lip  to  lip  during  this  campaign. 

"  Are  many  votes  really  bought  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Yes,  many,"  Shelby  answered  frankly.  "  I 
shouldn't  care  to  have  you  quote  me,  but  I'll 


THE    HENCHMAN  153 

admit  that  I've  sometimes  bought  them  my- 
self." 

She  was  dum founded  at  his  candor,  and  half 
regretted  it. 

"  Is  it  —  is  it  quite  necessary  ?  " 

"I  think  it  is  —  sometimes.  And  so  it  will 
be  till  the  reformers  show  the  practical  politician 
a  better  system,  or  human  nature  changes  its 
spots.  Indiana  was  bought  for  Lincoln  in  '64. 
It  would  take  an  unpractical  man,  even  an  un- 
patriotic man,  to  deny  that  the  crisis  did  not 
justify  the  step." 

"  Every  candidate  is  not  a  Lincoln." 

"  Nor  every  year  a  '64.  Timid  people  com- 
pound with  their  conscience  by  calling  that  In- 
diana affair  a  war  measure.  But  we're  talking 
of  our  own  state,  whose  political  name  has  justly 
or  unjustly  become  a  hissing  among  the  nations. 
I  don't  deny  there's  some  reason  for  it.  We  are 
big,  with  big  opportunities  for  corruption,  and  the 
tradition  of  sharp  practice  is  of  long  standing. 
We  bribed,  intimidated,  and  filibustered  in  swad- 
dling clothes,  and  stole  a  governorship  as  early  as 
1791.  The  tricks  of  to-day  have  all  gone  stale 
with  handling,  for  the  patriots  we  honor  were 
politicians  too." 

"  That  is  a  novel  point  of  view  for  me,"  Ruth 


i54  THE    HENCHMAN 

admitted.  "  It's  so  easy  to  think  the  old  time 
the  best  time."  This  was  the  pleader  of  the 
court-house  rally,  and  she  forgot  the  gaucheries 
and  limitations  of  a  moment  since. 

"All  in  all,  the  Catilines  meet  their  Ciceros," 
said  Shelby  ;  "  the  Tildens  undo  the  Tweeds. 
General  Jackson  once  said  he  was  not  a  politician, 
but  if  he  were,  he  should  be  a  New  York  politi- 
cian. You  see  the  state  is  an  eternal  riddle  — 
'  pivotal,'  as  the  saying  goes  —  the  mother  of 
parties,  the  devotee  of  none  ;  and  there  lies  half 
its  fascination  for  the  politician  —  I  might  say  for 
the  statesman.  What  passes  for  mere  politics 
here  might  well  figure  as  statesmanship  elsewhere. 
We  don't  call  our  commonwealth  the  Empire 
State  for  naught ;  its  interests  are  indeed  imperial, 
and  it  is  no  mean  office  to  shape  its  destinies.  It 
is  the  man  in  politics  who  does  this,  whether  you 
will  or  no.  A  free  government  requires  parties, 
parties  require  politicians  —  in  last  analysis  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  sovereign  people.  I  dare  say 
you're  wondering  what  all  these  generalities  have 
to  do  with  vote-buying  in  Tuscarora.  I'll  tell 
you.  It's  true  that  not  every  candidate  is  a 
Lincoln,  that  not  a  few  men  are  personally  un- 
worthy of  the  offices  they  hold  or  seek  ;  but  this 
also  is  true,  that  many  an  unworthy  man  is  worthy 


THE    HENCHMAN  155 

of  election,  even  by  bribery,  —  I  say  it  deliber- 
ately,—  because  of  his  party's  sake,  for  that  party's 
success  may  signify  the  country's  salvation.  You 
have,  of  course,  heard  sad  things  said  of  me. 
You  will  hear  more,  and  I  shall  not  run  around 
among  my  friends  to  deny  them.  Worthy  or 
unworthy,  I  merge  my  personality  in  that  of  my 
party,  in  whose  ultimate  patriotism  I  have  endur- 
ing faith." 

Ruth  was  no  logician. 

"  I  don't  believe  you  unworthy,"  she  said. 

"  That's  better  than  a  hundred  votes,"  laughed 
the  man,  vastly  pleased.  "  Let  me  promise  you 
something.  If  I'm  elected  to  Congress,  I  will 
do  and  say  everything  a  new  member  can  to  wipe 
out  the  tariff  on  objects  of  art." 

It  was  her  turn  for  mystification ;  if  he  had  his 
shallows,  he  also  had  his  depths. 

Shelby  did  not  ask  if  she  were  pleased ;  he 
saw  it. 

"  You  wouldn't  have  thought  it  of  a 
practical  politician  —  one  of  the  '  aesthetically 
dead,'  "  he  smiled.  "  Yet  it  is  the  politician  you 
should  seek  to  interest  in  these  things.  He'll 
see  their  value  if  he's  taught.  You  opened  my 
eyes  —  did  it  in  a  social  way,  which  is  the  best 
way.  It's  through  his  social  side,  be  it  in  bar- 


156  THE    HENCHMAN 

room  or  drawing-room,  that  the  politician  is 
most  easily  reached,  for  he's  a  human  being. 
Reformers  don't  see  that ;  they  aim  at  the  in- 
tellect direct.  You  didn't  dream,  in  talking  about 
art  to  me  now  and  then,  that  you  were  doing 
a  possible  public  service.  That's  the  key-note 
of  woman's  best  influence  in  politics,  I've  come 
to  believe  —  unconscious  argument,  not  speech- 
making.  You  have  influenced  me  more  than  I 
can  tell.  I've  grown.  You  have  broadened 
my  horizon.  Will  you  make  it  broader  ?  I 
ask  you  to  marry  me." 

It  was  a  little  moment  before  she  took  his 
meaning,  so  much  did  his  blunt  proposal  seem  a 
part  of  the  staccato  chat  of  politics  from  which  it 
issued. 

"  I  cannot,"  she  said  at  last. 

"  Why  ? " 

It  seemed  ridiculous  to  speak  of  the  affections 
to  this  business-like  creature  who  apparently 
counted  them  not  worth  mentioning ;  so  she  an- 
swered that  they  were  unsuited  to  one  another. 

Shelby  shook  his  head  emphatically. 

"  I  can't  agree  with  you.  Are  you  engaged  to 
marry  any  one  else  ?  " 

Ruth  colored  under  his  cross-examination,  but 
replied  that  she  was  not. 


THE    HENCHMAN  157 

"  We'll  let  the  question  lie  fallow  for  a  time," 
Shelby  arranged.  "  Think  it  over  impartially." 

She  tried  to  bid  him  put  the  thing  wholly  out 
of  mind,  but  he  adjourned  discussion  as  summa- 
rily as  he  might  a  committee  meeting,  and  spoke 
of  other  topics. 

It  was  sundown  when  they  neared  the  town, 
returning  by  way  of  Little  Poland  and  the  succes- 
sive quarries  bordering  the  canal.  Shelby  dropped 
a  careless  glance  at  the  docks  and  yards  of  his 
own  company,  now  quiet  with  the  day's  work 
done.  Then  he  looked  again.  Outlined  against 
the  sky  a  man  climbed  to  the  tow-path  and  walked 
away.  Shelby  recognized  Bernard  Graves. 

"  Ride  on  slowly,"  he  directed.  "  I'll  join  you 
in  a  minute.  There's  something  needs  looking 
after  in  the  Eureka." 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  intruder  wheeled  at  the  hoof-beats  and 
waited.  Purpling  with  rage,  Shelby  thrust  the 
cob's  nozzle  fairly  in  Graves's  face. 

"  You're  a  damned  spy,"  he  taunted. 

Graves  went  pale,  but  his  jaw  set. 

"  You  know  better,  Shelby,"  he  answered,  with- 
out passion.  "  I  am  here  openly.  I  came  be- 
fore the  quarry  shut  down  for  the  night,  as  your 
men  will  tell  you." 

"You're  a  spy,"  repeated  Shelby,  fingering  his 
whip.  "  Come  how  or  when,  you're  a  spy.  I 
know  your  back-door  tactics.  You  sly  into  other 
men's  private  business,  as  you're  trying  to  sly 
into  politics." 

"  I  care  nothing  for  any  private  business  of 
yours  which  doesn't  besmirch  your  public  char- 
acter." 

"  Besmirch  !  "  Shelby  pounced  upon  the  word. 
"  I  know  your  kidney  —  you  pure  souls  who 
shirk  jury  duty  and  whine  down  taxes." 

Graves  backed  from  the  nervous  whip. 

"  I  want  no  words  with  you,"  he  said. 
'58 


THE    HENCHMAN  159 

"  I  dare  say  ;  but  you'll  have  them.  He  reined 
the  cob  to  block  Graves's  further  retreat,  forcing 
him  well  upon  the  string-piece  of  the  dock. 
"You're  here  to  smell  out  canal  scandals,"  he 
charged.  "  You  want  to  know  what  became  of 
the  marketable  stone  that  was  taken  from  the 
canal  prism.  You'll  get  your  wish  right  here  and 
now.  I  took  that  stone,  my  pattern  of  civic  vir- 
tue ;  sold  it,  my  pink  of  reformers.  You  needn't 
have  screwed  Jap  Hinchey  for  that  knowledge. 
I  would  have  told  you  the  truth  any  time,  and 
much  good  may  it  do  you.  Are  you  ass  enough 
to  believe  that  the  contractors  went  outside  their 
specifications  to  dispose  of  the  spoils  banks  to  my 
company  ?  They  had  their  warrant  from  Albany 
in  black  and  white.  Every  act  was  within  the 
law." 

"  The  more  shame  upon  Albany  and  the  law ; 
it  is  the  letter  of  the  law  which  shelters  you." 

Shelby  rasped  a  laugh. 

"  I  know  something  of  the  spirit  of  laws." 

"  I  doubt  not.  You've  helped  make  enough 
disreputable  legislation  to  qualify  an  expert." 

"  What  right  has  a  dilettante  like  you  to  sit  in 
judgment  ?  "  he  demanded,  the  other's  barb  rank- 
ling none  the  less  that  he  had  invited  it.  "You 
have  no  notion  of  just  political  expediency ;  no 


160  THE    HENCHMAN 

notion  even  of  politics  with  which  you  meddle. 
Politics  isn't  book  knowledge ;  it's  flesh  and 
blood  fact.  Party  fealty  means  nothing  to  you. 
You've  not  voted  a  straight  ticket  twice  in  your 
life." 

"  I  know  where  that  shoe  pinches,"  retorted 
Graves.  "You  mean  I've  consistently  neglected 
to  vote  for  you.  Somehow  I  never  could  swallow 
your  assumption  of  divine  right  to  hold  office  all 
the  time." 

Shelby's  fingers  knotted  round  his  whip-handle. 

"  I'd  like  to  trounce  you,"  he  menaced.  "  It's 
a  hiding  you  need." 

"  For  presuming  to  run  against  you  ?  Let  me 
make  it  plain  that  I'm  not  to  be  intimidated  by 
you  or  any  of  your  creatures." 

"  I'd  like  to  trounce  you,"  repeated  Shelby, 
hoarsely,  beside  himself  with  the  gadfly  inquisi- 
tion of  the  past  few  days.  "I'm  sick  of  your 
pharisaical  ways.  I  bottom  your  lofty  motives 
well  enough.  Jealousy  goaded  you  into  politics. 
You're  a  reformer  because  the  heiress  wanted  none 
of  you.  If  Ruth  Temple  —  " 

Graves  wrenched  the  whip  from  Shelby's  grasp, 
and  struck  with  all  his  might.  The  warded  blow 
spent  itself  on  the  pommel  of  the  saddle. 

"  Stung,  eh  ?  "     Shelby  leaped  from  his  stirrups 


THE    HENCHMAN  161 

and  closed  with  him.  The  cob  took  fright  at  the 
reeling  men  and  pounded  off  up  the  tow-path 
toward  the  town. 

Then  another  horse  loomed  of  a  sudden  from 
out  the  dusk,  and  Ruth  herself  rode  straight  upon 
them,  enforcing  a  separation. 

"  How  dare  you  drag  my  name  into  a  low 
political  quarrel  —  either  of  you  ?  "  No  one  an- 
swered her.  "  Give  me  the  whip."  Shelby,  who 
had  regained  it,  obeyed  without  a  word.  Ruth 
flung  it  far  into  the  canal.  "  Now  if  you  will  be 
brutes,  use  brutes'  weapons."  Wherewith  she 
turned  an  indignant  back  and  galloped  an  exit 
from  the  scene  as  spirited  as  her  entrance. 

"You  knew  she  was  there,"  accused  Graves. 

"  I  left  her  in  the  road,  damn  you.  I  couldn't 
know  she  had  seen." 

Standing  on  the  dock's  sheer  edge,  they  glow- 
ered into  one  another's  eyes  through  the  fading 
twilight,  the  great  steam  cranes  behind  flinging 
out  giant  arms  over  the  stone  heaps,  the  black 
water  below  glancing  with  fitful  gleams  of  steel 
and  copper  from  the  sunset's  last  saffron  afterglow. 
The  yellow  headlight  of  a  low-lying  grain  boat 
stole  nearer,  unheeded  till  the  straining  mules 
toiled  by. 

"I   don't   know  what   keeps  me  from  — " 


i6i  THE    HENCHMAN 

Shelby's  lips  were  tardy  of  framing  what  his 
heart  lusted. 

"  Fear,  perhaps." 

"If  you  think  that,  then  —  " 

A  rain  of  oaths  from  the  driver  warned 
them  too  late  of  the  trailing  tow-line.  They 
tripped  together,  and  in  an  embrace  of  self-preser- 
vation together  fell  into  the  cool  still  waters 
which  ever  draw  unruffled,  though  their  banks 
smoulder  with  passion  and  political  intrigue  from 
the  Niagara  to  the  Hudson. 

Shelby  rose  first,  half-strangled,  and  laid  hold 
upon  the  wall.  Still  cursing  fluently,  the  driver 
pulled  him  to  the  string-piece,  and  both  men 
peered  out  over  the  watery  blackness,  now  cut 
with  a  widening  shaft  of  light  from  the  boat's 
lantern.  Graves  seemed  to  have  vanished  utterly, 
and  Shelby  made  the  banks  echo  with  his  name, 
but  the  canal  returned  no  answer.  The  man 
was  now  as  ready  to  save  as  a  moment  since  he 
had  been  ready  to  destroy,  but  before  he  could 
slip  again  into  the  water,  the  boat  glided  past, 
discovering  Graves  in  dim  silhouette  against  the 
gray  timbers,  swimming  at  ease. 

With  a  parting  curse,  indicative  of  relief,  the 
driver  set  off  down  the  tow-path  after  his  mules, 
while  Shelby  waited  on  the  brink  till  the  boat 


THE    HENCHMAN  163 

went  by,  intending  aid  if  the  swimmer's  strength 
should  fail.  But  Graves  was  of  no  mind  to 
cause  him  the  lifting  of  a  finger,  and  to  the 
watcher's  bewilderment  cut  directly  behind  the 
great  rudder  into  the  swirling  wake,  headed  for 
the  heel-path,  which  he  attained  with  a  dozen 
vigorous  strokes,  and  clambering  the  sloping  em- 
bankment, disappeared  in  a  clump  of  willows. 

The  autumn  frosts  nip  Tuscarora  betimes,  but 
Shelby  sat  staring  in  his  sodden  clothes,  till  he 
fathomed  his  rival's  motive,  and  chattered  forth 
a  laugh.  Then  he  hurried  across  the  dock  to 
the  little  tin-roofed  office  of  the  Eureka.  He 
was  without  a  key,  but  he  rummaged  a  pick  from 
one  of  the  neighboring  sheds,  forced  the  staple 
of  the  padlock,  and,  popping  into  the  oven 
warmth  of  the  cabin,  mended  the  fire  in  the  tiny 
sheet-iron  stove.  His  first  precaution  was  to 
drain  his  pocket  flask,  which  had  somehow  come 
through  unscathed,  and,  as  he  peeled  away  his 
clinging  garments  in  the  flickering  light,  he  tele- 
phoned the  Tuscarora  House  for  a  change  of 
clothing.  In  the  reflective  half-hour  before  the 
coming  of  the  messenger  he  felt  a  genuine  regret 
that  Graves  had  gone  his  own  way.  The  affair 
had  dropped  already  into  humorous  perspective, 
and  it  seemed  to  him  that,  had  they  stood  side 


1 64  THE    HENCHMAN 

by  side  in  this  cabin,  every  barrier  must  have 
fallen  and  the  outcome  been  wholly  good. 

Nature's  reaction  from  the  too  tense  hours 
of  that  crowded  day  was  at  its  utmost  swing  as 
he  gained  his  hotel  room  and  smoothed  the 
roughness  of  his  quarry  toilet.  The  familiar 
chamber  revolted  him  ;  its  warring  colors  jarred  ; 
the  nymphs  of  his  favorite  picture  were  devoid 
of  blandishment.  Nor  did  his  cronies  of  below 
stairs  attract,  and  the  liquor  he  had  taken  left  him 
no  appetite  for  solid  food.  He  craved  nothing 
so  much  as  rest  and  human  sympathy. 

Mrs.  Milliard  was  at  home. 

"  You  never  fail  when  I  need  you,"  she  said, 
as  Shelby  couched  his  jaded  body  in  the  cosy 
library  before  an  open  fire.  "  Joe  is  always  out, 
of  course.  I  don't  mind  that  —  now.  Milicent 
too  is  gone  to-night,  —  a  children's  party.  I've 
been  lonely  —  depressed.  Since  you  came  —  ah, 
well,  see  for  yourself  what  I  am." 

A  maudlin  self-pity,  born  of  alcohol,  dimmed 
Shelby's  eyes. 

"  It's  like  a  home  to  me,"  he  confessed,  his 
voice  uncertain.  "  It's  like  a  home." 

"  And  some  call  you  hard  !  "  Mrs.  Milliard 
extended  both  plump  hands  to  him.  "  How 
they  misjudge  you." 


THE    HENCHMAN  165 

"  Everybody  misjudges  me,  Cora,"  Shelby  de- 
clared, not  backward  in  manual  demonstration 
himself;  "everybody  but  you." 

The  lady  released  herself  adroitly,  and  fluttered 
the  music  at  a  piano  just  beyond  the  half-drawn 
portiere  of  the  adjoining  room. 

"  Shall  I  play  ?  "  she  asked. 

Shelby  nodded  like  a  sultan  from  his  cushions. 

"  Ragtime,"  he  directed.  "  Something  with 
a  tune."  The  other  woman  had  surfeited  him 
with  classicalities. 

He  built  air  castles  as  he  watched  and  listened ; 
fabrics  furnished  after  the  manner  of  the  Hil- 
liard  home  and  peopled  by  two  kindred  souls. 
If  this  insidious  luxury  were  his  —  the  warmth, 
ease,  leisure,  Cora !  He  considered  the  turn  of 
her  neck,  her  profile,  the  famous  shoulders,  now 
clothed  yet  not  concealed.  She  was  handsome 
still ;  ripe,  but  not  over-ripe,  ambitious,  capable. 
They  were  singularly  congenial,  he  and  she. 
,He  could  have  blundered  worse  than  in  marrying 
her,  had  not  burly  Joe  forestalled.  He  —  inap- 
preciative  hulk  !  —  was  no  fit  mate  for  her.  She 
needed  sympathy,  cooperation,  the  fellowship  of 
her  mind's  true  complement :  in  fine,  himself. 
If  the  other  woman  should  not  —  if  Joe  — ! 
He  clipped  the  revery  of  its  conclusion. 


1 66  THE    HENCHMAN 

In  that  evening's  long  intimacy  —  how  long  or 
how  intimate  neither  realized  till  afterward  —  the 
man  bared  his  financial  necessity. 

"  God  knows  why  I  blab  this,"  he  ended. 
"  I've  told  nobody  else  the  whole  truth,  not  even 
Bowers." 

She  lagged  short  of  his  meaning  at  first. 

"  But  you'll  have  plenty  in  time,"  she  said. 
"  There  will  be  your  congressional  salary  and  all 
the  new  opportunities." 

"  Without  money  I  may  never  draw  that 
salary." 

"  You  don't  mean  you'll  fail !  You  don't 
mean  that,  Ross  ?  " 

He  bowed  gravely. 

"  But  it's  impossible.  Why,  everybody  will 
vote  for  you  —  almost  everybody.  Joe  alone 
will  give  you  two  hundred  votes." 

"  It  will  require  more  than  Little  Poland's 
good-will  to  elect  me,"  he  smiled  grimly. 

"  You  must  buy  votes  ? " 

"Yes." 

"  And  you  have  nothing  ?  " 

"  At  this  moment  I  haven't  enough  ready  cash 
to  give  me  a  decent  burial." 

"  Don't  speak  like  that."  She  rose  impulsively, 
and  unlocked  a  cabinet  in  the  chimneypiece. 


THE    HENCHMAN  167 

"Here  is  a  little  —  not  much  —  a  hundred  dol- 
lars perhaps.     I  want  you  to  take  it ;    it's  mine 

—  some  of  my  allowance.     I  want  to  give  it  to 
the  party.     And  there's  more.     I've  a  mortgage 

—  my  very  own.     You  shall  have  that  too  —  for 
the  party." 

Shelby  leaped  to  his  feet  as  she  thrust  the  bills 
in  his  hands. 

"  My  God,  Cora,"  he  cried,  "  I  can't  take  this 

—  your  pin  money  !  " 

She  caught  the  notes  from  his  protesting 
fingers  and  forced  them  into  his  nearest  pocket. 

"You  shall,"  she  pleaded;  "you  shall  —  for 
the  party." 

He  seized  her  hands  and  bent  to  meet  her 
eyes. 

"  Cora,  Cora,"  he  whispered  hoarsely,  "  you're 
not  doing  this  for  the  party  !  It's  not  for  the 
party  !  It's  for  me,  Cora,  for  me  —  " 

"Such  a  nice  party  —  party  —  "  A  fragment 
of  Milicent's  treble  good  nights  drifted  in  from 
the  sidewalk  like  an  echo. 


CHAPTER   VI 

SHELBY  waked  from  a  restless  night  to  confront 
a  restless  day,  in  truth,  an  anxious  week.  Two 
things  he  set  about  instanter :  he  wrote  a  manly 
letter  of  apology  to  Ruth,  and  he  returned  Mrs. 
Milliard's  money.  All  day  long  he  parried  and 
laughed  down  fatuous  comment  on  his  supposed 
cropper  into  the  canal,  for  the  cob  had  returned 
to  his  manger  and  founded  a  theory  that  his  mas- 
ter let  gossip  accept  as  true.  He  dissembled  with 
greater  ease  as  the  hours  lapsed,  finding  reasons 
why  the  inner  history  of  the  incident  would  re- 
main secret ;  neither  Ruth  nor  Bernard  Graves 
was  likely  to  tell  —  he  certainly  should  not.  In 
the  evening  it  was  bruited  that  Graves  was  sick, 
and  the  morrow's  Whig  diagnosed  his  malady 
as  influenza.  Shelby  thanked  his  practical  stars 
that  the  ducking  had  had  no  such  issue  for  him. 
By  the  second  evening  he  was  doubly  thankful, 
for  the  press  despatches  were  ticking  out  to  whom 
it  might  concern  that  the  distinguished  author 
of  the  ode  on  the  "  Victory  of  Samothrace  "  and 
other  poems  lay  low  with  pneumonia. 

1 68 


THE    HENCHMAN  169 

In  common  with  hundreds,  Shelby  sent  a  mes- 
sage of  regret,  which,  like  its  fellow-hundreds, 
nobody  at  the  Graves  cottage  found  time  to 
read.  Many  of  these  notes  and  telegrams,  how- 
ever, found  their  way  into  the  Whig^  but  Shelby 
hunted  its  despised  columns  in  vain  for  his  own. 
This  seemed  to  him  and  to  Bowers  a  deliberate 
attempt  by  Sprague  to  stamp  him  as  unfeeling,  — 
to  coin  party  Capital,  —  and  with  the  notion  of 
righting  himself  in  the  public  eye  Shelby  deter- 
mined upon  a  personal  call  at  the  house.  By  a 
piece  of  good  fortune,  as  unexpected  as  it  was 
welcome,  he  was  received  by  Ruth,  who  had  vol- 
unteered to  lighten  the  burden  of  the  sick  man's 
mother  in  ways  like  this.  She  was  unembarrassed, 
courteous,  even  kind  in  a  formal  fashion,  telling 
him  in  subdued  accents  what  he  knew  she  must 
know  he  knew  already  from  the  newspapers. 
The  patient's  case  discussed  from  every  point  of 
view,  the  caller  burned  to  forward  his  own  concerns, 
to  renew  his  apologies,  to  make  his  peace ;  but  he 
could  find  no  opening,  and  shortly  went  away. 
Yet  his  silence  did  him  better  service  than  speech. 
Ruth  mistook  his  unrest  for  contrition,  and  pitied 
him. 

As  Graves's  disease  neared  its  crisis,  with  hur- 
ried summoning  of  consulting  physicians  and 


I7o  THE    HENCHMAN 

rumors  of  a  resort  to  oxygen,  Shelby  found  it 
impossible  to  avoid  an  occasional  glance  into  an 
immediate  future  in  which  Graves  figured  merely 
as  a  memory ;  but  whatever  his  speculations,  he 
was  decently  chary  of  voicing  them.  Some  of 
his  party  associates  were  more  outspoken,  and  the 
opinion  was  advanced  over  the  Tuscarora  House 
bar  that,  the  loss  to  literature  aside,  the  young 
man's  taking-off  could  not  but  simplify  the  politi- 
cal situation.  The  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers,  being  of 
the  old  school,  quaintly  declined  both  speculation 
and  discussion. 

The  day  of  the  crisis  Shelby  saw  Dr.  Crandall 
step  from  his  phaeton  to  his  little  sham  Greek 
temple  of  an  office  at  the  foot  of  his  lawn,  and 
followed  him.  The  bluff  physician  greeted  him 
with  a  scowl. 

"  Well,  sir  ? "  he  jerked  out,  fumbling  and 
smelling  among  his  bottles. 

"  I  wanted  news  of  Graves." 

"  I  doubt  not." 

The  words  of  themselves  were  innocuous,  but 
the  doctor's  hammering  emphasis  was  formidable. 

"  I  resent  your  tone,"  protested  Shelby. 

"And  I,  sir,  resent  your  inquiry." 

"  You  must  have  received  many  like  it.  How- 
ever, you  may  keep  your  bulletins.  Those  of 


THE    HENCHMAN 


171 


the  consulting  physicians  are  probably  more  reli- 
able." 

With  this  shaft  he  turned,  but  Dr.  Crandall 
was  beforehand  and  closed  the  door. 

"  Not  yet,  sir,  not  yet,"  he  said  grimly.  "  I 
have  a  bulletin  for  you,  deem  its  worth  what  you 
will.  And  I  have  more.  I  must  administer 
some  nasty  medicine.  My  patient  will  recover, 
sir,  and  no  thanks  to  you." 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean." 

"Yes,  you  do." 

"You  accuse  me  of  lying  —  " 

"  Bah,  sir,  stop  your  ruffling.  Now  for  your 
physic.  At  the  instance  of  my  lifelong  friend, 
Seneca  Bowers,  I  consented  against  my  better 
judgment  to  preside  last  month  at  your  ratifica- 
tion meeting,  and  so  lent  you,  as  I  may  say,  my 
public  indorsement.  I  shall  not  publicly  stul- 
tify myself  by  repudiating  that  action,  but  my 
vote,  thank  Heaven,  I  never  pledged.  I  warn 
you,  sir,  that,  as  sure  as  I  see  the  sun  rise  on 
election  day,  I  shall  cast  my  ballot  for  your 
opponent,  or  my  name's  not  Crandall." 

"  Very  well,"  sneered  Shelby,  coolly.  "  If  your 
political  allegiance  follows  your  fee,  there's  no 
more  to  be  said." 

"  I  am  stoically  indifferent  to  your  slanderous 


i72  THE    HENCHMAN 

imputation,"  fumed  the  doctor,  his  manner  a  very 
Judas  to  his  words  ;  "  but  I  assure  you  there  is 
more  to  be  said,  and  that  I  purpose  to  say  it.  I 
have  yet  to  tell  you  that  you  are  a  blackguard, 
sir,  a  violent  blackguard,  whose  proper  level  is  the 
ward  cesspools  of  the  metropolis  where  crime  and 
politics  stalk  hand  in  hand.  Medical  science  will 
save  the  man  you  would  have  done  to  death." 

Shelby  passed  the  vituperation,  puzzling  how 
much  the  irate  doctor  knew. 

"  Is  your  patient's  delirium  contagious  ?  "  he 
asked. 

"  Ha  !  "  cried  the  doctor.  "  You  do  take  my 
meaning." 

"  It's  clear  enough  that  you  are  hinting  at  foul 
play  on  the  flimsiest  of  evidence." 

"  Evidence,  evidence !  I  want  no  surer  evi- 
dence of  your  intent  than  poor  Bernard's  wander- 
ings ;  there's  method,  sir,  even  in  delirium.  If  I 
wished  further  proof,  the  fact  that  you  too  were 
in  the  canal  that  night  would  suffice." 

"  Fevered  maunderings  and  a  coincidence ! " 
Shelby  laughed  him  in  the  face,  too  contemptu- 
ous to  set  him  right.  "  Keep  your  vote,  you 
pompous  ignoramus,"  he  jeered,  and  left  him 
sputtering. 

Worsting  the  choleric  physician  in  argument 


THE    HENCHMAN  173 

was  a  mere  matter  of  keeping  one's  own  temper, 
and  Shelby  took  no  pride  in  his  victory.  It  was 
a  relief  to  know  that  he  knew  so  little,  but  the 
possibility  remained  that,  in  the  weakness  of  con- 
valescence, Bernard  might  let  fall  details  more 
damaging  than  Dr.  Crandall's  tissue  of  half- 
knowledge  and  inference.  Ruth  and  pneumonia 
eliminated,  the  quarrel  might  have  become  public 
property  and  welcome,  with  a  likely  chance  of  its 
working  to  his  advantage;  but,  alas,  he  himself  had 
dragged  Ruth  into  it  past  all  elimination,  and 
now  Bernard's  sickness  had  whipped  up  a  sea 
of  maudlin  sympathy  which  exposure  might  easily 
precipitate  in  a  political  tidal  wave. 

From  this  day  forth,  event  crowded  event. 
The  news  frtfm  the  sick-room  was  the  signal  for 
renewed  activity  all  along  the  line  of  battle,  and 
the  spectre  of  his  great  need  haunted  Shelby  with 
added  terrors.  Bernard  Graves's  allies,  apt 
disciples  of  the  late  Chuck  O'Rourke  as  they 
were,  jumped  at  the  shining  possibilities  laid 
open  by  their  candidate's  condition,  and,  abetted 
financially  by  their  State  Committee,  set  a  pace 
in  corruption  unprecedented  in  the  checkered 
history  of  the  Demijohn.  Volney  Sprague  was 
powerless.  The  freebooters  listened  sedately  to 
his  protests  and  redoubled  their  offending,  well 


i74  THE    HENCHMAN 

aware  that  in  their  candidate's  chamber  politics 
could  have  yet  no  place.  Far  from  the  turmoil, 
the  celebrity  ate  the  jellies  of  his  idolaters,  and 
spent  his  waking  hours  in  the  impractical  com- 
panionship of  a  certain  Shelley  and  one  John 
Keats. 

The  beset  leaders  strained  the  machine's  every 
cog  to  meet  the  emergency.  Out  from  a  corner 
of  the  Chairman  of  the  County  Committee's  safe 
came  a  pudgy  manuscript  book  which  few  eyes 
ever  saw,  —  a  book  made  up  of  voters'  names, 
their  party,  and  at  times  their  price  set  down 
in  strange  symbols  which  the  initiated  might 
translate  into  terms  of  dollars  and  cents.  Prob- 
ably every  county  committee  in  the  Demijohn 
Congressional  District  could  show  the  like.  There 
was  earnest  thumbing  of  these  volumes,  with 
changing  of  symbols  to  fit  changed  conditions, 
and  the  call  went  out  for  money.  Little  came. 
The  State  Committee  was  deaf  to  argument  or 
entreaty,  and  the  Demijohn  seemed  drained. 
Shelby  and  Bowers  personally  did  what  they 
could.  For  reputation's  sake,  the  old  leader 
went  down  deep  into  his  pocket,  while  Shelby 
tossed  into  the  breach  everything  he  realized 
from  his  mortgaged  quarry  interest  which  long 
outstanding  debts  did  not  require.  Nor  were 


THE    HENCHMAN  i;5 

these  latter  inconsiderable.  Involved  in  innu- 
merable schemes  which  sapped  his  capital  without 
prospect  of  ready  dividends,  it  seemed  to  him 
that  every  land  syndicate,  stock  company,  in- 
surance policy,  what  not,  of  them  all  was  de- 
manding instant  propitiation.  Brave  it  out  with 
Bowers  as  he  might,  Shelby  walked  none  the 
less  in  the  shadow  of  a  mighty  fear ;  and  had  not 
Mrs.  Milliard  left  town  for  her  annual  autumn 
round  of  the  shops  of  New  York,  he  could  have 
gone  to  her  prepared  to  accept  her  supremest 
charity. 

In  his  blackest  hour  the  distracted  man  en- 
countered the  Widow  Weatherwax.  Since  her 
sibylline  performances  at  the  camp-meeting  he 
had  seen  little  of  her,  the  fascination  of  will- 
making  being  temporarily  eclipsed  by  a  local 
temperance  crusade  led  by  Mr.  Hewett,  which 
enlisted  the  full  energy  of  her  not  inconsiderable 
powers  for  conscience-guided  meddling.  The 
parson  had  deemed  the  time  ripe  for  a  war  on 
the  groggeries  of  the  Flats,  with  the  outcome 

D        OO 

that  most  bar-rooms  of  the  town,  including  that 
of  the  Tuscarora  House,  were  found  to  be  vio- 
lating the  Sunday  closing  law.  In  the  legal 
unpleasantness  which  followed,  Shelby's  name 
figured  as  attorney  for  the  hotel  proprietor,  one 


176  THE    HENCHMAN 

of  the  lawyer's  regular  clients.  It  was  a  purely 
formal  service,  without  moral  implication  of  any 
sort,  but  it  bared  Shelby's  whole  legislative 
record  on  the  liquor  question  to  pin-prick  attack, 
and  cost  him,  as  he  now  learned  from  her 
shocked  lips,  the  invaluable  political  support  of 
the  widow. 

Buttonholed  while  crossing  the  court-house 
lawn,  and  backed  into  a  corner  between  the 
county  clerk's  office  and  the  jail,  Shelby  had  to 
listen  with  what  patience  he  might  to  her  denun- 
ciation of  what  she  called  his  vile  concord  with 
Belial. 

"  Yes,  yes,  Mrs.  Weatherwax,"  he  wedged  in 
finally;  "but  we  can't  all  think  alike.  Now  if 
you  were  a  liquor  dealer's  wife,  you  would  sing 
another  song." 

The  widow  shuddered. 

"  Me  !  "  Another  shudder.  "  Me  marry 
a  saloon  keeper!  Me!  —  a  W.C.T.U.  and  a 
I.O.G.T.!" 

Shelby  grinned. 

"They  say  I.O.G.T.  means  CI  Often  Get 
Tight.' '  Somehow  he  could  not  resist  the  an- 
cient rural  fling. 

"  You  know  well  'miff  'tain't,"  retorted  the 
widow,  indignantly.  "  It's  the  Inderpendunt 


THE    HENCHMAN  177 

Order  ov  Good  Templars,  and  I'm  an  orf 'cer 
with  regalyer.  It's  purple,  and  has  gold  lace." 

"  I'm  amazed  at  your  wearing  such  fripperies," 
teased  the  man ;  "  but  you  must  look  simply 
ravishing." 

The  widow  was  bomb-proof  against  humorous 
attack.  Drawing  herself  to  her  full  height,  as 
she  might  clad  in  full  regalia  of  purple  and  gold, 
she  mouthed :  — 

"  '  I  loath,  abhor,  my  very  soul  with  strong 
disgust  is  stirred,  whene'er  I  see,  or  hear,  or 
tell  ov  the  dark  bev'rage  ov  hell.' ' 

The  dumpy  little  figure,  swelling  like  a  pouter 
pigeon's,  was  so  irresistibly  ludicrous  that  Shelby 
forgot  his  troubles  and  threw  back  his  head  in 
a  gust  of  laughter. 

"  Think  it's  funny,  I  s'pose."  Her  face  was 
vinegar.  "  'Tain't  to  be  expected  a  boy  brung 
up  in  a  distillery  'ud  know  better." 

Shelby  sobered. 

"  Confine  yourself  to  facts,  please,"  he  inter- 
posed. "My  grandfather's  entirely  respectable 
distilling  business  was  closed  out  before  I  was 
born." 

"  'Twa'n't  b'fore  your  pa  was  made  a  drunkard, 
Ross  Shelby." 

He  went  red  with  impotent  anger. 


178  THE    HENCHMAN 

"By  God  !  "  he  swore.  "If — if  you  were  a 
man  —  " 

"  There  you  go  a-swearin'  at  a  poor  weak 
female." 

"  Let  me  pass,"  he  choked.  "  Let  me  pass. 
I  don't  know  what  I  may  say  to  you." 

She  stepped  aside. 

"  Go,"  she  said,  with  a  fat  little  gesture. 
"  Mebbe  you've  got  pressin'  business.  Mebbe 
you  want  to  write  billy-doos  to  Mrs.  Hilliard. 
Mebbe  them  opery  glasses  needs  dustin'  off 
s'more." 

He  fled  lest  she  say  worse. 

'Clearly  William  Irons  had  been  wax  in  the 
widow's  hands,  and  on  his  auburn  head  would 
have  fallen  the  accumulated  spleen  of  weeks  had 
not  the  youth  met  his  employer  at  the  office  door 
with  a  telegram  whose  portentous  message  en- 
gulfed all  lesser  cares. 


CHAPTER   VII 

SHELBY  read,  pondered,  and  finally  roused  from 
his  preoccupation  to  meet  the  bovine  stare  of  his 
clerk. 

"  Railway  guide,  William,"  he  ordered  sharply. 

"Yep." 

"  And  call  up  the  station  agent.  Have  him 
wire  for  a  lower  berth  on  the  Lehigh  to-night." 

William  Irons  waited. 

"  Go  on,  go  on,"  called  the  politician,  crossly, 
glancing  up  from  his  time-table.  "  Have  you 
foundered  halfway  ? " 

"  Nope.     You  didn't  say  where  to." 

"  New  York,  New  York." 

"  Yep,"  said  William,  placidly.  "  What  train? " 

Shelby  left  off  staring  at  his  blotter  for  an 
instant,  to  fling  him  the  information.  William 
Irons  rubbed  one  long  leg  against  its  fellow  as  he 
leaned  to  the  telephone  and  ruminated  the  mys- 
tery of  this  impending  flight  into  what  was  for 
him  the  great  unknown.  This  air  of  suppressed 
excitement  had  never  attended  Shelby's  depart- 
ures. 

179 


i8o  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Goin'  to  use  it  yourself?"   he  inquired. 

"  Is  the  station  agent  aching  to  know  ? " 

"  Nope,"  returned  William,  frankly.  "  He 
didn't  ask." 

"  Then  you  needn't.  Now  get  Mr.  Bowers's 
residence,  and  ask  if  he  is  there." 

"  Got  him,"  announced  the  clerk  presently,  as 
if  he  had  trapped  a  rat,  and  stood  expectantly 
aside.  To  his  disappointment  Shelby  merely 
made  an  immediate  appointment  at  the  Bowers's 
home.  More  bitter  still,  he  took  the  message 
with  him. 

"  Lightning  has  struck,"  Shelby  greeted  the  old 
man  ten  minutes  later,  handing  him  the  telegram. 
"  I've  been  ordered  down  to  the  Boss.  This 
means  make  or  break." 

The  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers  unslung  his  glasses 
and  slowly  read  the  summons. 

"  I  guess  it  had  to  come,"  he  commented. 

"  Oh,  yes.  Things  have  reached  lowest  ebb. 
In  fact,  they're  so  low  that  you  must  put  up  my 
car  fare." 

Bowers  assented  readily. 

"  Whatever  you  need  you  shall  have,  Ross. 
You  must  go  in  good  style." 

Shelby  pocketed  the  sum  which  he  thought 
would  meet  his  travelling  expenses  and  listened 


THE    HENCHMAN  181 

to  his  friend's  rather  dolorous  words  of  encour- 
agement. 

"  I  think  he'll  do  right  by  you,"  Bowers  con- 
cluded feebly.  "  I  think  he'll  do  right." 

Shelby  jerked  a  grim  smile. 

"The  Boss  always  does  right  —  when  it  pays." 

In  the  smoking-room  of  the  Pullman  that 
night  the  traveller  was  accosted  by  an  unctuous 
person  who  looked  like  a  race-track  tout.  He 
would  have  described  himself  as  a  man  "  inter- 
ested "  in  legislation  ;  he  had  been  described  by 
other  people  as  a  lobbyist,  but  that  was  in  the 
days  before  the  machine  absorbed  the  lobby. 

"And  how  does  the  Hon.  Calvin  Ross  Shelby 
find  himself?  "  beamed  the  new-comer,  dropping 
into  a  seat  alongside.  "  Busy  days  in  Tuscarora, 
eh?" 

"  Yes ;  busy  days,  Krantz,"  assented  the  har- 
assed man,  concealing  his  annoyance  under  a 
cordial  greeting.  If  ever  he  had  needed  a  quiet 
hour  it  was  now,  and  he  had  sought  the  smoking- 
compartment  because  with  a  earful  of  women  and 
children  it  seemed  to  promise  solitude. 

"  Shall  miss  you  around  Albany  this  winter," 
Krantz  said  feelingly,  exploring  the  pockets  of  his 
horsey  waistcoat  for  a  cigar.  "  We  always  got 
along  so  well  together." 


182  THE    HENCHMAN 

Shelby  was  silent  under  this  moving  reminis- 
cence. 

"  I'll  have  some  of  my  Washington  friends 
look  you  up,"  pursued  the  man.  "  They're  good 
fellows,  all  of 'em." 

"Thanks,"  said  Shelby,  without  enthusiasm. 
"  Better  wait  till  I'm  elected." 

"  My  dear  sir,  can  you  doubt  ?  Your  resplen- 
dent gonfalon,  if  I  may  so  express  myself,  has 
ever  been  Victory's  chosen  perch." 

"  I've  pulled  a  majority  hitherto." 

"  And  you  will,  you  will.  In  fact "  —  his  voice 
fell  —  "we  think  it  such  a  foregone  conclusion 
that  one  of  my  friends  who  is  looking  over  the 
prospective  House  wants  to  make  your  acquaint- 
ance. You're  sure  to  jibe.  He's  interested  in 
the  unlucky  River  and  Harbor  scheme." 

"Oh." 

Krantz  looked  out  at  him  from  underneath  his 
saurian  lids,  and  blew  a  smoke  ring  toward  the 
rococo  ceiling. 

"  Through  an  option  or  two  I'm  rather  inter- 
ested myself,"  he  continued  smoothly.  "  I'd  like 
to  see  every  good  man  indorse  a  good  thing.  I 
haven't  been  told  what  your  opinion  is."  Get- 
ting no  answer,  he  added  :  "  Of  course  we  expect 
to  pull  the  thing  off  in  this  winter's  session.  If 


THE    HENCHMAN  183 

not,  then  the  fight  goes  into  your  House.     Be- 
tween ourselves,  just  where  do  you  stand  ?  " 

"  You  don't  need  to  be  told  that  it's  a  gigantic 

•  i_  » 
job. 

Krantz's  benevolent  features  expressed  blandest 
regret. 

"  Now  isn't  it  a  pity  that  misconception  should 
be  so  widespread  ? "  he  exclaimed,  apparently  to 
the  writhing  ornaments  of  the  ceiling.  "  Isn't  it 
a  pity  ?  But  it's  so  often  true  !  Take  that  street 
railway  bill  of  yours  last  winter  :  how  that  enlight- 
ened measure  was  denounced  !  " 

Shelby  scowled. 

"  We're  talking  of  Washington." 

"  They've  a  lot  in  common,  Albany  and  Wash- 
ington." 

"  I  don't  want  them  to  have  for  me." 

Krantz  laughed. 

"  How  reform  does  drop  its  gentle  influence 
round !  Has  the  fusion  movement  in  Tuscarora 
converted  you  ? " 

"  No,"  Shelby  answered.     "  I've  grown." 

Krantz  looked  bewildered,  laughed  a  little,  and 
asked  point-blank,  "  Shall  you  come  out  against 
us?" 

"  You'll  know  in  Washington." 

"If  elected,"  qualified  the  man. 


1 84  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Naturally." 

Krantz  rang  up  the  porter  to  ask  if  his  berth 
were  ready,  rose,  yawned,  and  shed  a  benevolent 
smile. 

"  From  things  they're  beginning  to  say  about 
Tuscarora  down  at  headquarters,"  he  remarked 
impersonally,  "  I  venture  to  predict  that  we'll 
know  within  twenty-four  hours.  Good  night." 

The  River  and  Harbor  bogy  wove  the  pattern 
of  Shelby's  troubled  dreams.  In  a  way,  he  had 
grown,  as  he  liked  to  think,  and  by  this  touch- 
stone he  knew  it  best.  Whatever  his  practice, 
his  quickened  ideals  were  loftier  than  of  old,  and 
across  the  future's  broader  field,  should  it  be  his 
to  till,  the  man  was  honestly  ambitious  to  trace  a 
straighter  furrow  than  his  ploughshare  had  ever 
turned.  But  his  past  and  the  insistent  present 
seemed  to  hamper  every  forward  step.  It  was 
an  open  secret  that  the  disciplining  of  the  man 
he  hoped  to  succeed  had  issued  directly  from  his 
refusal  to  stand  with  his  colleagues  in  this  question, 
and  Shelby  in  his  heart  approved  his  course.  He 
did  not  anticipate  that  he  should  meet  a  like 
dilemma ;  the  winter  session  of  the  old  House 
would  doubtless  settle  the  matter,  as  Krantz  had 
said ;  but  Volney  Sprague  had  harped  upon  his 
possible  action  so  incessantly  that  he  could  easily 


THE    HENCHMAN  185 

see  why  the  organization  might  wonder  at  his 
silence.  Was  the  time  for  speech.,  then,  so  near 
as  this  creature  warned  ? 

Yet  he  took  a  certain  comfort  in  Krantz's  com- 
panionship in  the  morning,  as  from  the  crowded 
ferry  he  watched  the  city's  sky  line  detach  itself 
from  the  mist.  Notwithstanding  his  legislative 
career,  New  York  was  almost  an  unknown  coun- 
try, and  this  battlemented  mystery  overawed  him 
like  a  frowning  bastion.  It  challenged  the  alien 
to  do  and  dare,  but  it  quenched  his  individuality. 
Krantz,  obviously,  was  hardened  to  its  lesson. 
He  elbowed  the  jostling  pack  in  the  ferry  slip  as 
one  of  them,  called  the  elevated  road  the  "  L," 
and  was  otherwise  enviably  sophisticated.  Shelby 
imitated  at  a  distance,  but  the  hall  mark  of  the 
outsider  was  too  deep  for  ready  erasure.  He 
would  persistently  apologize  to  people  with 
whom  he  collided,  and  surrender  his  car  seat 
to  standing  women. 

He  had  mentioned  a  Madison  Square  hotel  as 
his  destination,  and  on  Krantz's  saying  that  he 
meant  to  stop  there  briefly,  too,  it  fell  out  that 
they  approached  the  room  clerk  together,  and 
that  Krantz  registered  for  both.  So  it  chanced 
that,  unknown  to  himself,  the  candidate  was 
entered  with  a  fine  flourish  as  the  Hon.  Calvin 


186  THE    HENCHMAN 

Ross  Shelby.  The  two  men  breakfasted  to- 
gether, and  Krantz  presently  went  about  his 
business,  leaving  Shelby  in  some  quandary  how 
he  should  employ  the  interval  before  the  hour 
appointed  by  the  great  leader  for  their  meeting. 
For  a  time  he  loitered  in  a  window  overlooking 
the  restful  oasis  of  the  square,  a  place  of  foun- 
tains and  pleasant  leafage,  dominated  by  a  grace- 
ful tower  which  served  as  footstool  for  a  shining 
goddess  on  tiptoe  to  greet  the  morning.  His 
eyes  were  not  long  bent  upon  the  goddess,  —  he 
did  not  "  live  with  the  gods,"  —  nor  yet  upon  the 
greenness,  since  he  had  lived  all  his  days  with 
shrubs  and  trees ;  he  watched  the  commingling 
tide  of  Broadway  and  Fifth  Avenue,  watched  till 
it  dizzied  and  saddened  him.  What  did  he 
count  here  ? 

Presently  he  returned  to  the  desk  with  an 
inquiry  concerning  his  room.  There  had  been 
a  shift  of  clerks  since  his  arrival,  and  the  new- 
comer asked  his  name,  his  impassive  scrutiny 
travelling  from  the  man  to  the  signature,  and 
from  the  signature  back  to  the  man.  A  young- 
ish person,  looking  the  successful  broker  or  law- 
yer, who  had  been  chatting  with  the  clerk,  saw 
the  movement  and  imitated  it  as  Shelby  walked 
away. 


THE    HENCHMAN  187 

"  And  you  said  there  were  no  celebrities,"  he 
bantered. 

The  clerk  shrugged  listlessly. 

"  The  <  Hon.  Calvin  Ross  Shelby,' "  read  the 
reporter.  "  There  ought  to  be  a  story  in  a  man 
who  has  the  nerve  to  subscribe  himself  like  that 
in  a  New  York  hotel.  What  do  you  know  about 
his  pathetic  case  ?  " 

"Stranger  to  me,"  the  bored  one  unbent  to 
say. 

The  questioner  spied  a  fellow-reporter  whose 
specialty  was  politics. 

"  Billy,"  he  demanded,  pointing  to  the  register, 
"  who  is  the  Hon.  Calvin  Ross  Shelby  ?  " 

"  Candidate  for  Congress  in  the  Demijohn 
District,"  returned  the  political  expert,  promptly, 
smiling  at  the  signature.  "  Rather  picturesque 
fight  the  honorable  is  having.  He's  bucking  a 
fusion  opposition  headed  by  the  author  of  that 
popular  poem  about  a  statue.  Where  is  he  ?  I 
want  to  see  him.  There's  nothing  else  doing 
here." 

They  pursued  the  stranger  down  the  corridor, 
overhauling  him  at  the  entrance  of  the  cafe. 

"  The  Hon.  Calvin  Ross  Shelby,  I  believe," 
said  the  political  reporter,  lifting  his  hat,  and 
naming  the  newspaper  he  represented.  His 


1 88  THE    HENCHMAN 

companion,  who  looked  like  a  broker,  but 
whose  present  mission  was  to  screw  copy  out 
of  hotel  arrivals,  followed  his  example,  and  the 
group  was  almost  immediately  increased  by  three 
more  well-dressed  cosmopolitans  with  ingratiat- 
ing manners  and  a  scent  for  news. 

Five  New  York  reporters  hanging  on  his 
words  !  To  achieve  this  giddy  pinnacle  on  the 
heels  of  calling  himself  an  atom  seemed  to  Shelby 
almost  to  pass  belief.  Somehow  he  rallied. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  beamed,  "  I'm  glad  to  see 
you.  Have  a  drink." 

No  liquor  distilled  could  add  to  Shelby's  in- 
toxication. It  was  not  reporting,  this  swift 
interchange  of  trenchant  thought  between  men 
of  the  world ;  or  if  reporting,  a  sublimated  sort, 
free  of  note-books  and  the  disconcerting  trade- 
marks of  the  guild  as  he  had  known  it  else- 
where. 

"  I  can't  understand  the  hostility  felt  by 
some  public  men  for  the  press,"  he  remarked, 
thumbs  in  armholes,  coat  lapels  thrown  benignly 
back.  {<?  Our  relations,  I  take  it,  should  be  con- 
fidential." 

Practice  followed  precept,  and  in  that  delight- 
ful atmosphere  Shelby's  confidences  flowered  like 
young  May.  Tuscarora  County  was  put  through 


THE    HENCHMAN  189 

its  paces  for  a  gaping  world ;  Clinton's  Ditch  — 
"  well-spring  of  New  York's  commercial  suprem- 
acy, gentlemen  "  —  shown  in  rosiest  apotheosis  ; 
the  Empire  State  pedestalled  imperially  among  the 
nations.  Nor  could  his  versatility  be  bounded 
by  politics  alone.  The  inevitable  allusion  to 
Bernard  Graves's  poem  involved  literature,  and 
to  stand,  as  he  did,  under  the  same  roof  with  the 
nymphs  who  had  long  bodied  forth  his  pictorial 
ideal,  was  to  invite  a  public  avowal  of  his  pro- 
posed championship  of  free  art.  He  was  lured 
the  farther  into  this  quagmire  by  the  guileless 
questioning  of  one  of  his  listeners,  who  lingered 
in  obvious  fascination  after  his  fellows  had  de- 
parted, and,  in  happy  ignorance  that  the  cherubic 
youth  was  the  son  of  an  artist  of  distinction, 
and  himself  no  mean  critic  of  things  artistic, 
Shelby  voiced  opinions  more  vigorous  than 
discreet. 

"  There  was  a  time,"  he  confessed  apropos  of 
the  nymphs,  "when  I  thought  those  ladies  the 
best  ever.  Young  eyes  won't  hesitate  between  a 
plump  Venus  and  a  lean  Madonna." 

"  And  now  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  haven't  altogether  renounced  the 
world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  but  my  taste  has 
changed.  A  good  animal  picture  fetches  me,  — 


1 9o  THE    HENCHMAN 

something  like  Rosa  What's-her-name's  f  Horse 
Fair'  you've  got  up-town  in  Central  Park.  I  call 
that  big  art." 

"  Big  art ;  that's  the  word,"  agreed  the  cherub, 
shaking  hands.  "It  measures  197x93^-,"  he 
murmured  to  his  cigarette. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  Boss  was  an  awesome  figure  to  up-state 
politicians,  and  Shelby  approached  his  place  of 
business  with  a  trepidation  not  wholly  owing  to 
his  tangled  fortunes.  It  was  his  first  visit.  There 
had  been  meetings  between  them  at  Saratoga  con- 
ventions, and  more  times  than  a  few  he  had  fur- 
thered the  leader's  indirect  ends  in  the  Albany 
committee-rooms  and  on  the  floor  of  the  Assem- 
bly ;  but  greater  than  Shelby  had  found  it  impos- 
sible to  penetrate  the  great  man's  inner  circle  at 
Saratoga,  and  their  subterranean  dealings  in  Al- 
bany and  elsewhere  had  usually  been  transacted 
by  way  of  Bowers.  The  Boss's  methods  were 
circuitous,  cog  fitting  smoothly  to  cog  till  the 
remote  agent  rather  than  himself  seemed  the 
prime  mover.  Only  in  emergencies  was  he 
direct. 

His  apparent  aloofness  multiplied  his  power. 
He  held  no  office ;  he  made  no  speeches ;  he 
had  no  obvious  axe  to  grind.  He  seemed  to 
count  politics  his  diversion,  not  his  business,  and 
emphasized  this  attitude  by  a  strict  supervision  of 

191 


i92  THE    HENCHMAN 

the  huge  commercial  enterprise  whose  head  he 
was.  He  arrived  in  this  company's  offices  punc- 
tually at  ten  o'clock,  and  here  he  was  readily 
accessible  throughout  the  working  day,  a  figure 
as  politically  unprofessional  as  one  could  imagine. 
Yet  politically  he  was  as  absolute  as  a  boss  ever 
is.  At  once  the  most  abused,  hated,  dreaded, 
liked,  and  respected  man  in  the  state,  fables 
without  number  clustered  round  his  elusive  per- 
sonality. One  account  would  paint  him  a  church 
deacon,  frock-coated,  smug ;  another  with  cloven 
hoof.  He  was  said  to  be  a  Hedonist,  a  Marcus 
Aurelius ;  a  glutton,  an  ascetic ;  a  satyr,  a  pat- 
tern of  domestic  virtue ;  an  illiterate  Philistine, 
a  collector  of  book  plates  and  first  editions.  A 
legend,  widely  current,  ran  that  he  played  chief 
bacchanalian  at  dinners  whose  vaudeville  accom- 
paniments were  too  gross  for  a  bill  of  particulars ; 
while  another,  equally  plausible,  had  it  that  he 
lunched  daily  on  a  red-cheeked  apple  raised  on 
the  farm  which  had  cradled  his  undistinguished 
infancy.  He  was  popularly  known  as  Old 
Silky. 

Shelby's  card  barely  preceded  him  into  the 
Boss's  presence.  It  was  not  a  sumptuous 
throne-room ;  an  austere  chamber  rather,  one 
might  without  exaggeration  say  a  roomy  cell, 


THE    HENCHMAN  193 

with  puritanic  chairs  and  khaki-colored  regi- 
ments of  letter  files.  There  were  two  conces- 
sions to  a  softer  scheme  of  life,  —  a  lounge  and  a 
bowl  of  red  chrysanthemums,  both  with  associa- 
tions. On  the  lounge,  which  parenthetically  had 
lesser  though  not  less  interesting  memories,  a 
President-to-be  had  sat  a  suppliant,  while  the 
bowl,  always  flower-heaped,  recalled  an  hour 
when  a  tempestuous  petticoat,  his  protege,  had 
swept  straight  from  operatic  triumphs  to  shower 
roses  at  his  feet.  This  ruddy  bowl  lit  a  broad, 
low  desk  from  which  now  advanced  a  gray-haired 
man  of  a  certain  shy  friendliness  and  modulated 
tones. 

"  This  is  right  obliging  of  you,"  he  said  over 
the  hand-clasp.  "  Don't  tell  me  you've  already 
lunched  ? " 

Shelby  had,  but  dissembled,  his  tone  dropping 
in  unconscious  imitation  of  the  leader's.  Every 
apprehension  forgotten,  he  yielded  instantly  to 
the  charm  of  his  unassuming  friendliness. 

"  Then  you  must  honor  me.  Five  minutes 
with  these  papers  and  I'll  be  with  you."  He 
turned  to  a  pile  of  type-written  letters  awaiting 
his  signature,  his  whole  demeanor  a  graceful 
protest  against  this  retarding  of  their  pleasure. 
"  Here  are  the  afternoon  papers  if  you  care  to 


i94  THE    HENCHMAN 

look  them  over ;  they  come  upon  us  before  the 
ink  is  dry  on  the  morning's  batch.  No,  no ; 
not  that  uncomfortable  chair,  Mr.  Shelby.  Take 
the  lounge,  I  beg  of  you.  Stand  on  no  ceremony 
here.  This  is  Liberty  Hall." 

Somebody  should  write  the  philosophy  of 
chairs.  One  may  retain  convictions  in  furniture 
which  is  palpably  vertebrate ;  lapped  in  billowing 
upholstery  it  is  a  moot  question ;  and  like  many 
a  caller's  before  him,  Shelby's  brain  tissue  be- 
came a  jelly  of  flattered  complacency.  It  sufficed 
merely  to  simmer  in  a  sense  of  equality  with  the 
silver-haired  gentleman  at  the  desk.  The  Boss  ! 
He  had  heard  that  the  great  man  loathed  the 
homely  title  his  leadership  entailed.  It  was  not 
pretty ;  but  its  rough  forceful  Americanism  had 
never  struck  Shelby  as  inept  till  this  moment. 
Applied  to  this  suave  yet  virile  creature  it  fell 
grotesquely  short,  missing  the  key-note  of  his 
supremacy.  Set  back  some  centuries,  this  Boss 
would  have  been  his  Eminence  the  Cardinal. 

It  may  be  doubted  had  the  Boss  actually  worn 
the  red  hat  whether  a  procession  of  liveried  mes- 
sengers could  have  impressed  Shelby  more  than 
did  a  small  desk  telephone  half  concealed  by  the 
chrysanthemums.  Its  bell  tinkled  incessantly, 
and  with  infinite  patience  the  leader  interrupted 


THE   HENCHMAN  195 

his  work  again  and  again  to  answer  it,  seeming 
from  Shelby's  vantage  point  to  murmur  secret 
messages  into  the  petals  of  the  flowers.  The 
dismembered  half  of  a  telephone  conversation  is 
not  ordinarily  illuminating,  and  the  Boss's  words 
in  themselves  said  little.  How  tremendously 
much  they  might  connote,  the  visitor  as  a  busi- 
ness man  and  a  politician  thoroughly  appreciated, 
and  his  imagination  did  the  occasion  something 
more  than  justice.  Desk  telephones  were  un- 
known in  the  simpler  Tuscarora  world. 

Thus  the  five  minutes  were  lengthened  out  to 
ten,  and  then  with  apologies  to  a  quarter  of  an 
hour.  Shelby's  eyes  dropped  to  the  newspapers 
on  his  knee  and  fastened  on  a  headline  — 

"SHELBY  AND   THE   DEMIJOHN." 

It  required  a  second  reading.  The  absorbing 
present  had  for  the  moment  sponged  the  morn- 
ing's happenings  from  his  thoughts.  To  remem- 
ber explained  without  cheapening  the  sensation. 
He  was  used  to  a  relative  prominence  in  the  rural 
press,  but  neither  this  nor  the  talk  with  the  re- 
porters had  prepared  him  for  inch-high  capitals 
on  the  first  page  of  a  metropolitan  newspaper. 
What  New  Yorkers  thought  of  this  particular 
newspaper  was  a  detail. 


196  THE    HENCHMAN 

SHELBY   AND  THE 
DEMIJOHN. 


A  Sidelight  on  the  Storm  Centre  of 

the  Most  Pictnresqne  Political 

Fight  in  the  Empire  State, 


The  Opponent,  of  the  Author  of  the  Ode  on  the 

Victory  of  Samothrace  talks  of  his  Rival 

for  Congressional  Honors  and  his  Book, 


MR.  SHELBY'S  VIGOROUS  VIEWS  ON  THE 
ISSUES  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN. 

There  followed  a  well-spiced  "  story  "  in  which 
Shelby,  with  his  diction  chastened  and  his  col- 
loquialisms omitted  save  where  they  lent  a  racy 
strength,  was  made  to  say  the  things  the  reporter 
concluded  he  ought  to  have  said  —  it  was  a  party 
organ  —  and  to  sparkle  after  a  fashion  which  is 
actually  attained  by  few  in  the  presence  of  the 
interviewer.  Even  at  his  weakest  he  was  caused 
to  shine.  A  kindly  platitude  he  had  let  fall  anent 


THE    HENCHMAN 


197 


Graves's  book  astonished  him  as  he  met  it  again ; 
the  merest  crust  upon  the  waters,  under  the 
reporter's  manipulation,  it  returned  to  him  a 
filling  loaf:  — 

"But,"  said  Mr.  Shelby,  "is  the  production  of  literature, 
however  delightful,  the  fittest  school  for  official  life  ?  This,  I 
conceive,  is  the  whole  issue  between  me  and  this  gifted  youth 
whose  illness  I  deplore." 

It  would  have  been  well  had  he  stopped  here ; 
but  he  turned  to  the  other  papers.  There  was 
no  repetition  of  the  first  page  glory,  his  eulogist's 
contemporaries  entertaining  other  ideas  of  space ; 
but  he  found  his  name  in  most  of  them. 

"MR.  GRAVES'S  OPPONENT  HERE" 

"That  virtuous  spellbinder  of  county  fairs,  the  "  Hon." 
C.  R.  Shelby,  reached  the  city  to-day  arm  in  arm  with  the 
notorious  Jake  Krantz.  The  character  of  this  aspirant  for  con- 
gressional preferment  in  the  so-called  Demijohn  District  may  be 
readily  judged  by  the  company  he  keeps." 

Shelby  needed  no  plainer  signpost  than  the 
style  to  warn  him  that  he  had  fallen  foul  of  the 
caustic  journal  which  had  flayed  his  plagiarism. 
He  stole  a  glance  toward  the  desk,  wondering 
whether  the  Boss  had  read  these  things.  Then 
he  ran  hastily  through  the  scurrilous  perversion 
of  his  words.  Could  nothing  curb  this  tyranny  ? 


198  THE    HENCHMAN 

Yet  a  greater  indignity  was  in  store.  His  cup 
brimmed  at  the  discovery  that  in  the  cherub  also 
he  had  cherished  a  viper.  His  mortification  was 
too  keen  for  the  perusal  of  more  than  an  occa- 
sional phrase  :  "  Art's  New  Patron  "  —  "  The 
Champion  of  Canals  couches  a  lance  against  the 
tariff  on  art "  —  "  his  naive  canons  of  criticism  " 
—  "judges  a  picture  by  its  area  of  canvas  —  the 
bigger  the  better." 

"  Scoundrels  !  "  he  suddenly  rapped  out,  crump- 
ling the  papers  in  his  disgust. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  ?  "  said  the  Boss,  gently, 
peering  over  the  chrysanthemums. 

"I  beg  yours.  These  —  these  reporters  have 
misrepresented  me." 

"  Dear  me!  Do  you  mind  that  ?  You  shouldn't. 
One  has  to  be  Jekyll  or  Hyde.  There's  no  happy 
medium.  But  luckily  the  public  takes  care  of 
that.  Trust  the  public  to  guess,  Mr.  Shelby, 
that  you're  neither  an  art  critic  nor  an  ass.  And 
don't  be  rough  on  the  reporters,"  he  added,  get- 
ting up.  "  They  work  hard  for  a  living,  poor 
boys.  Caricature  is  the  press's  peculiar  tribute 
to  the  significant." 

Outside  the  door  of  the  private  office  Shelby's 
face  suddenly  froze.  Several  newspaper  men  had 
gathered  to  question  the  Boss,  and  among  them 


THE    HENCHMAN  199 

the  victim  recognized  one  of  his  detractors.  The 
impulse  was  strong  to  snub,  but  taught  by  the 
leader's  example,  he  smiled  instead  and  dropped 
a  friendly  nod. 

"  Seeking  whom  you  may  devour,  gentlemen  ? " 
inquired  the  Boss.  "  So  am  I.  It's  past  my 
lunch  hour,  you  know." 

With  a  dozen  words  he  outlined  'the  matter 
over  which  they  were  exercised,  called  one  and 
another  by  name,  shunted  an  inconvenient  ques- 
tion, told  a  little  story,  and  had  slipped  out  of  the 
building  with  Shelby  before  the  pupil  realized 
that  the  interview  had  fairly  begun. 

"  I  like  the  boys,"  he  declared.  "  They  slate 
me,  but  we're  good  friends." 

The  incident  impressed  Shelby  only  less  than 
the  desk  telephone,  and  the  walk  to  luncheon  in- 
tensified his  respect.  The  Boss  explained  that  he 
ate  at  a  mid-air  club  rather  remote  from  his  place 
of  business  because  it  compelled  a  chestful  of 
fresh  air ;  and  Shelby  underwent  the  unique  expe- 
rience of  promenading  busiest  Broadway  with  a 
man  to  whom  people  bowed  on  every  hand.  The 
Boss  took  it  all  as  equably  as  the  country  lawyer 
might  his  morning  salutations  between  his  office 
and  the  Tuscarora  House ;  but  to  Shelby,  from 
Trinity  to  St.  Paul's,  and  from  the  City  Hall  to 


200  THE    HENCHMAN 

the  granite  sky-scraper,  whose  elevator  shot  them 
story  after  story  to  the  roof,  was  a  splendid  tri- 
umphal progress.  It  was  a  democratic  people's 
homage  to  power. 

The  big  green  and  white  club  dining  room  in 
the  sky  took  up  the  wondrous  tale.  Greetings 
everywhere,  and  jovial  beckonings  to  join  this 
group  and  that.  At  the  great  man's  instance, 
however,  they  were  placed  at  a  table  for  two, 
whose  outlook  seemed  to  the  stranger  to  embrace 
the  kingdoms  of  the  earth.  Life,  pulsing  life,  as 
far  as  the  embarrassed  eye  could  carry ;  life  in  the 
mazy  streets  below ;  life  in  the  forking  estuary's 
tide ;  life,  eager  red-blooded  life,  to  the  crest  of 
the  horizon's  hills  !  Nerve  ganglion  of  a  conti- 
nent, market-place  of  a  world  !  Shelby  swept  the 
panorama  again  and  again  as  his  host  gave  his 
quiet  orders  to  the  waiter,  tracing  the  Hudson 
from  the  shipping-crowded  bay  till  its  blueness 
melted  in  the  haze  beyond  which  lay  the  common- 
wealth, the  empire,  whose  political  destinies  seemed 
to  rest  in  the  hollow  of  this  man's  hand.  It 
drugged  the  senses  to  attempt  to  gauge  his  power. 

The  Boss  was  speaking  of  Tuscarora  and  the 
Demijohn.  Out  of  painful  experience  he  had 
come  to  believe  that  the  truest  privacy  is  the 
privacy  of  the  crowd,  and  indeed  the  mounting 


THE    HENCHMAN  201 

chaff  and  chatter  of  the  lunch  hour  insured  isola- 
tion most  complete.  He  was  speaking  of  Tusca- 
rora  and  the  Demijohn,  and  it  had  begun  over  the 
salad,  apropos  of  Bowers. 

"  His  political  usefulness  is  at  an  end,"  said  the 
leader.  "  There  was  nothing  tangible  to  be  got 
from  him  at  our  last  conference,  and  I  determined 
to  send  for  you." 

Shelby  essayed  a  middle  course  between  expec- 
tation and  regret. 

"  He  says  it's  his  last  campaign,  poor  old  chap." 

"  Yes,"  concurred  the  Boss,  without  sentiment ; 
"  we  talked  it  over.  It  was  our  opinion  that  the 
organization  requires  younger  blood  —  in  fine, 
your  own." 

"  Mine  ?  "     The  query  was  perfunctory. 

"  You  logically  succeed  —  on  a  condition." 

"  A  condition  ? " 

"  Your  election  to  Congress." 

After  a  moment  Shelby  said  :  — 

"  It's  an  incentive  to  work." 

"  It's  the  least  you've  to  work  for,  if  you  will 
permit  me  to  say  so." 

"  I  don't  understand." 

The  Boss  was  silent  while  the  servant  changed 
the  course.  Then  he  searched  the  younger  man's 
eyes. 


202  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Let  me  point  out  what  your  election  may 
mean,"  he  went  on.  "  It  has  been  an  unusual 
contest.  Mr.  Graves's  candidacy  has  interested 
an  audience  which  is  fairly  national  in  its  scope. 
If  victor,  you  will  take  your  seat  a  marked  man, 
equipped  with  a  prestige  uncommon  to  new- 
comers in  Washington.  You  will  have  defeated 
a  celebrity,  and  you  will  stand  accredited  one  of 
the  party  leaders  of  your  state." 

Shelby's  eyes  widened. 

"  One  of  the  leaders  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  I  like  you." 

While  the  waiter  brought  the  finger  bowls  the 
significance  of  the  simple  words  burned  into  Shel- 
by's brain.  The  two  men  lit  cigars  and  waited ; 
Shelby's  was  gnawed  to  shapelessness.  Left  to 
themselves  again,  the  Boss  said  softly :  — 

"  Two  years  from  this  fall  the  governorship 
should  go  to  your  section." 

Shelby's  color  mantled  and  ebbed,  leaving  him 
white. 

"  Our  choice,"  —  the  Boss's  purring  note  sank 
—  "  our  choice,  if  my  poor  opinion  should  carry 
weight  with  the  convention,  our  choice  will  be 
you." 

Before  Shelby  could  force  a  broken  word  of 
acknowledgment  from  his  dry  throat  the  Boss 


THE    HENCHMAN  203 

had  plunged  into  a  keen  analysis  of  the  situation 
in  the  Demijohn.  Local  statistics,  finances,  pa- 
tronage, men's  names,  habits,  and  characteristics, 
the  minutest  details,  were  at  his  finger-tips,  and 
the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  drove  home 
like  a  sledge. 

"  Your  election  hangs  on  money ;  on  your 
election  hangs  your  future." 

"  I've  spent  every  cent,"  returned  Shelby,  with 
slow  distinctness. 

"  Yes  ;   I  know,"  was  the  quiet  rejoinder. 

"  I  have  hoped  that  the  State  Committee  would 
do  something.  The  circumstances  are,  as  you 
say,  unusual." 

The  Boss  leaned  across  the  table  with  a  smile. 

"  Why  mince  matters,  my  dear  fellow  ?  You 
shall  have  any  sum  you  ask  if  you  will  assure  us 
of  one  thing.  You  have  left  your  friends  in 
doubt  as  to  your  attitude  toward  the  River  and 
Harbor  unpleasantness.  Not  even  Bowers  could 
enlighten  us.  Now  as  far  as  the  enemy  is  con- 
cerned, it  doesn't  matter,  but  it  does  matter  to  the 
organization.  The  project  was  abused  beyond  all 
reason  —  though  that  is  neither  here  nor  there. 
Whatever  the  captious  may  call  it,  the  thing  has 
become  an  organization  measure,  and  as  such  a 
test  of  loyalty.  Are  you  loyal  ?  " 


204  THE    HENCHMAN 

Shelby  turned  his  drawn  face  toward  the 
window.  Truly  he  had  been  brought  up  into 
a  high  place  and  shown  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth. 

"  Yes,"  he  answered  ;  "  I'm  loyal." 


CHAPTER    IX 

IN  leaving  his  party  headquarters  up-town  two 
hours  later,  Shelby  trod  air.  Accustomed  to 
eschew  a  too  nice  scrutiny  of  means  if  the  end 
seemed  meet,  he  merged  every  doubt  and  queasi- 
ness  in  the  recurring  tide  of  hope.  Everything 
ministered  to  his  profound  content  —  the  great 
leader's  parting  assurances,  the  flattering  reception 
at  headquarters  which  followed,  the  leap  from 
need  to  affluence.  It  was  another  atmosphere, 
another  sun,  another  city. 

The  afternoon  gayety  of  the  streets  was  wholly 
to  his  mood.  One  need  not  be  an  atom  here. 
To  concede  a  little,  to  dare  a  little  —  that  was 
the  Open  Sesame.  He  held  his  head  sturdily 
erect.  He  looked  the  impudent  city  in  the  face, 
its  equal.  With  the  sense  of  equality  budded 
a  tolerant  liking,  a  Go-to-Old-Ant-Hill  frame 
of  mind,  with  admixture  of  chanty.  He  must 
study  the  Ant  Hill,  find  out  its  interests  and  its 
needs,  since  from  the  chrysalis  of  the  country 
legislator  was  shortly  to  evolve  the  statesman 

205 


206  THE    HENCHMAN 

whose  constituency  was  the  state.  The  thought 
was  broadening  —  surely  he  had  grown  !  —  and 
fertile  of  large  sweeping  views  of  things  and  men. 
Why  be  petty  ?  A  human  signboard  advertising 
Bernard  Graves's  volume  for  ninety-eight  cents, 
with  the  privilege  of  return,  evoked  no  unkind 
thought  against  his  rival ;  and  from  this  loftier 
plane  he  could  see  even  the  morning's  rencounter 
with  the  reporters  in  an  indulgent  light.  He 
bought  later  editions  of  the  afternoon  papers 
that  he  might  rehearse  the  episode  from  his 
new  point  of  view,  and  was  disappointed  to  find 
that  where  some  fresh  sensation  had  not  crowded 
him  from  print  altogether,  he  was  dismissed  to 
out-of-the  way  corners  which  nobody  read.  Yet 
this,  too,  he  met  with  a  statesman's  broad 
philosophy. 

"  Lady  in  hansom  wants  to  speak  with  you, 
sir." 

Shelby  had  drifted  into  the  shopping  district 
with  some  vague  notion  of  visiting  a  wax-works 
museum,  dear  to  the  rural  heart,  and  was  loiter- 
ing among  the  novelty  fakirs  who  lined  the 
crowded  thoroughfare.  He  turned  to  confront 
the  liveried  carriage  attendant  of  one  of  the  great 
department  stores,  who,  indicating  a  cab  at  the 
curb,  repeated  his  message.  With  the  hansom's 


THE    HENCHMAN 


207 


doors  thrown  wide  to  display  her  gown,  sat  Mrs. 
Hilliard,  smiling. 

The  man  strode  to  her  side  and  caught  her 
outstretched  hand. 

"  Cora,"  he  exclaimed,  in  undertone,  "  you're 
the  handsomest  woman  on  the  street !  " 

If  there  had  been  anything  more  remote  from 
his  purpose  than  this  meeting,  it  was  this  speech. 
He  knew  of  her  presence  in  the  city,  he  knew 
her  address  ;  but  from  prudential  motives  he  did 
not  precisely  formulate  he  had  determined  not  to 
go  to  her. 

c<  Get  in,"  she  murmured,  her  pleasing  color 
heightening.  "  We  mustn't  block  the  way." 

Such  superior  tact  in  the  face  of  urban  condi- 
tions impressed  him,  —  he  would  have  stood  gos- 
siping, as  in  New  Babylon's  sluggish  streets, — 
and  almost  without  volition  he  obeyed. 

"  The  Avenue,"  directed  Mrs.  Hilliard. 

"Which?"  asked  cabby,  his  florid  face  filling 
the  trap. 

"  Fifth,  of  course,"  said  the  lady,  with  annoy- 
ance. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  Mrs.  Hilliard  aimed 
to  be  cosmopolitan,  and  it  is  pertinent  to  add 
that  one  of  the  chiefest  delights  of  this,  her  annual 
pilgrimage,  was  to  ride  the  livelong  day  in  han- 


2o8  THE    HENCHMAN 

som  cabs.  People  in  the  sort  of  fiction  she  was 
fondest  of  "  called  a  hansom "  at  least  once  a 
chapter. 

"You  never  came  to  see  me,"  she  accused,  as 
they  drove  on. 

"  You  can't  know  how  busy  I've  been."  This 
was  well  within  the  truth,  as  was  his  further  state- 
ment that  he  knew  no  good  could  come  of  call- 
ing at  the  Waldorf  at  this  hour.  "  You  have 
proved  that  I  should  have  missed  you." 

"  But  your  card  wouldn't.  It  would  have  had 
its  silent  message.  Do  you  realize  that  we 
haven't  met  since  —  " 

"  We've  met  now,"  he  interposed  hastily  ;  "  and 
I'm  another  man." 

"  Don't  tell  me  the  old  one's  wholly  gone." 

"  Never  fear.  I  forget  nothing.  I  appreciate 
what  you  wanted  to  do  for  me  —  what  you  have 
done ;  but  the  necessity  is  past,  thank  God ! 
The  load  is  lifted  —  there's  money  to  burn  — 
I'm  free,  free!" 

"  Dear  friend,"  said  Mrs.  Milliard.  "  You 
make  me  so  happy." 

"  And  I've  been  honored,"  he  exulted.  "  I 
lunched  to-day  with  our  great  leader  —  and,  Cora, 
whatever  they  say  against  him,  he  is  indeed  great 
—  and  he  was  more  than  kind."  It  was  near  his 


THE    HENCHMAN  209 

lips  to  hint  of  the  rosy  future,  but  he  spoke  in- 
stead of  a  lesser,  though  nearer  prize,  which  the 
day  had  assured.  "  He  believes  in  me,  and  he 
has  asked  me  to  return  home  by  the  governor's 
own  special  train  !  " 

"  I  knew  it,  I  knew  it.  I  was  sure  that  they 
would  appreciate  you  at  the  last.  I've  seen  the 
papers,  too,  and  I'm  so  proud.  I  want  the  peo- 
ple at  home  to  know  that  the  big  outside  world 
is  awake  to  your  importance.  Even  New  York 
journalism  pays  its  tribute." 

"Did  you  —  er  —  read  all  the  papers?  One 
has  to  be  Jekyll  or  Hyde,  you  know,"  he  added, 
appropriating  the  Boss's  illustration  without  com- 
punction. "Some  of  them  were  —  facetious." 

"  Indeed  I  did  not.  I  only  skimmed  the 
horrid  ones ;  but  the  others  I  read  through  and 
through,  and  sent  them  home.  I  threw  the 
spiteful  ones  away.  They  were  jealous  of  your 
success." 

He  smiled  a  little  at  this. 

"  Not  rabidly  jealous,  I  guess." 

"  The  governor's  train  !  "  She  made  him  as 
elaborate  an  obeisance  as  the  hansom's  contracted 
limits  would  permit.  "  And  yet  you  condescend 
to  take  the  air  with  humble  me." 

He  laughed  joyously. 


210  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  I  feel  like  a  boy  with  a  holiday,"  he  con- 
fessed. "I'm  free  —  free!"  He  kindled  at  her 
suggestion  that  they  make  it  a  holiday  in  truth, 
and  repeating,  "  I'm  free,"  gave  himself  to  the 
spectacle  of  the  street. 

Mrs.  Milliard  suddenly  remembered  to  be 
cosmopolitan,  and  bringing  her  lorgnon  into 
action,  returned  stare  for  stare  as  their  driver 
threaded  his  dexterous  way  through  the  clat- 
tering, glittering  maze  of  four  o'clock  Fifth 
Avenue. 

With  bewildering  facility,  she  named  the  owners 
of  the  great  h6uses  —  usually  striking  amiss, 
though  Shelby  could  not  know  —  and  from  some 
little  experience  with  New  York  horse  shows, 
could  recognize  an  occasional  carriage  occupant. 
Her  adaptability  abashed  him,  setting  her  mys- 
teriously apart  from  the  woman  whose  past  had 
been  so  intimately  linked  with  his,  and  not  until 
they  tacked  across  the  plaza  into  the  wooded  en- 
trance of  the  park,  which  somehow  suggested 
Tuscarora,  did  he  pluck  up  the  old  sense  of  com- 
radeship. There  were  still  glittering  equipages  in 
plenty,  and  at  every  turn  benches  black  with  sight- 
seers, for  the  day  was  a  bit  of  summer  gone  astray  ; 
but  this  and  that  bright-liveried  copse  or  shining 
pond  or  meadow  cropped  by  sheep  evoked  the 


THE   HENCHMAN  211 

familiar  setting  of  their  other  rides  without 
effacing  the  city  towering  beyond. 

"  I  guess  you  were  born  for  this  kind  of  thing, 
Cora,"  he  broke  the  silence. 

The  woman  gave  a  flattered  little  laugh  which 
tapered  to  a  sigh. 

"  You,  too,  were  meant  for  something  wider 
than  Tuscarora,"  she  returned  ;  "  and  you  will 
get  it,  —  get  it  here,  perhaps.  The  great  New 
Yorkers  are  usually  country-born,  you  know. 
You'll  find  your  niche  —  no  small  one;  find  it 
and  fill  it ;  while  I  —  ?  Ah,  well ;  this  isn't 
the  talk  for  your  holiday." 

He  brushed  her  sleeve  with  a  light  pressure. 

"  Make  it    your   holiday,  too.       Let  yourself 

go." 

"  Our  holiday,  then,"  she  assented  ;  "  no  past, 

no  future,  just  here  and  now." 

Copying  nature's  lead,  the  character  of  the 
park  changed  by  and  by ;  the  way  rose  from  a 
sun-shot  ravine  and  wound  a  wooded  hill  full 
of  forest  scents  and  subdued  surf-like  echoings 
of  the  city's  roar.  Strange  rock  upheavals  with 
writhing  strata  flanked  the  by-paths,  a  mystery 
and  an  invitation,  and  the  man  and  woman  left 
their  hansom  to  shuffle,  a  pair  of  children,  in 
the  fallen  leaves.  A  squirrel,  tame  to  familiarity, 


212  THE    HENCHMAN 

pushed  his  nut-begging  little  nose  fairly  into 
their  ringers. 

"  How  perfectly  Edenic,"  murmured  Mrs. 
Hilliard.  "  I  feel  as  if  there  wasn't  another 
human  being  besides  you  on  earth." 

Paradise  before  the  Fall  had  its  dinner  problem 
to  discuss,  as  witness  the  apple  affair,  and  so 
presently  had  Shelby  and  Mrs.  Hilliard.  But  it 
was  the  man,  not  Eve,  who  put  the  idea  forward 
as  the  fitting  climax  of  a  memorable  day,  as  per- 
haps did  Father  Adam,  though  she  it  was  who 
ran  the  garden's  resources  through,  and  decided 
which  to  choose.  The  talk  had  ranged  from 
Sherry's  and  Delmonico's  to  Chinatown  and  the 
Ghetto,  when  Mrs.  Hilliard  recollected  a  place 
ideally  suited  to  the  occasion. 

"  It's  on  Riverside  Drive,  and  overlooks  the 
Hudson,''  she  explained.  "  I've  heard  Ruth 
Temple  speak  of  it,  though  I  can't  remember 
the  name.  The  driver  will  know ;  it's  historic." 

The  driver  did  know,  and  whipped  them 
smartly  out  of  a  park  exit  where  the  heights 
fell  abruptly  away  and  the  elevated  railroad  far 
overhead  twisted  a  wriggling  S  into  Harlem's 
sixth  story.  Then  the  land  again  rose  sheer  on 
gray  curtains  of  masonry,  splashed  red  with 
October  ivy,  lifting  city  on  city.  A  cathedral's. 


THE    HENCHMAN 


213 


beginnings,  looking  a  ruin,  now  cut  sharply 
against  the  sky,  neighboring  a  hospital  with  the 
fa9ade  of  a  chateau.  Then  they  skirted  a  pink 
and  gray  university  grouped  about  a  dome,  and 
a  great  man's  tomb  which  might  have  been  a 
Titan's  pepper-box,  flourishing  presently  between 
files  of  waiting  hansoms  and  automobiles  to  their 
destination. 

The  restaurant  was  crowded,  but  they  luckily 
succeeded  to  a  just  vacated  table  by  a  northern 
window  which  swept  the  valley.  A  sunset  of 
myriad  tints  and  opalescent  fires  made  molten 
copper  of  the  river  and  a  carnival  float  of  every 
craft. 

"  We  have  it  clear  to-night,"  said  their  waiter, 
as  if  the  establishment  somehow  deserved  the 
credit.  "You'd  not  think  that  big  cliff  to  the 
left  was  opposite  Yonkers.  That's  Fort  Wash- 
ington nearer  on  the  right.  A  fight  came  off 
there  up  on  the  heights,  you  know.  Wash- 
ington had  to  look  on  from  the  Palisades  and 
see  the  Hessians  bayonet  his  troops.  They  say 
he  wept." 

Mrs.  Hilliard  considered  him  through  her 
lorgnon,  but  the  man  was  busy  with  the  napery 
and  escaped  punishment. 

"The  house  is  pretty  famous,  too,"  he  went 


214  THE    HENCHMAN 

on.  "  Joseph  Bonaparte  lived  here  for  a  while, 
you  know,  and  when  Fulton  tried  his  steam- 
boat—" 

"Yes,"  interrupted  Mrs.  Hilliard,  icily,  "we 
know." 

"  Beg  pardon,"  returned  the  servant,  taking 
the  order  slip.  "  Out  of  town  people  generally 
like  to  be  told." 

"  It's  no  use,  Cora,"  rallied  Shelby,  at  the 
first  opportunity.  "  You're  handicapped.  You'll 
never  pass  for  a  native  while  I'm  along."  He 
divined  that  she  was  vexed,  and  shifted  instantly. 
"Thank  you  for  bringing  me  here.  After  this 
day  of  ours  we  couldn't  have  picked  a  finer 
sundown." 

"  Sundown  —  and  the  end." 

Shelby  threw  her  a  glance,  and  beckoning  the 
waiter,  added  champagne  to  his  order. 

"  We'll  not  let  the  celebration  peter  out  in 
the  dumps,"  he  declared. 

She  demurred  faintly.  She  was  unused  to 
wine  with  her  meals,  she  said ;  Joe  had  old- 
fashioned  ideas  about  women  and  wine,  and  so 
on ;  but  in  the  end  they  shared  the  bottle 
equally,  and  the  holiday  took  a  new  lease  of 
life.  Night  set  in  before  they  finished.  The 
river  went  black  and  mysterious,  the  shipping 


THE    HENCHMAN  215 

lights  winked  forth  like  glow-worms,  and  the 
illuminated  walking  beam  of  a  ferry-boat  minced 
a  fantastic  progress  from  shore  to  shore.  The 
sometime  home  of  the  ex-King  of  Spain  flowered 
within  and  without  with  electricity,  and  life 
simplified  itself  to  cakes  and  ale. 

From  the  steps  they  watched  their  hansom 
detach  itself  from  the  long  line  of  yellow-eyed 
monsters  waiting  in  the  outer  gloom. 

"  It  must  end  now,"  sighed  Mrs.  Milliard. 

"  There's  the  theatre,  —  why  not  ?  New  York 
is  so  big." 

"  I  must  not." 

"  Nothing  heavy.  Say  burlesque  or  vaude- 
ville ?  " 

"If  I  dared  —  " 

Shelby  put  her  in  the  hansom  and  gave  the 
driver  the  name  of  a  music  hall.  The  lights 
of  the  theatrical  district  charmed  the  last  prudent 
doubt  away. 

There  was  a  moment's  embarrassment  at  the 
ticket-office.  The  little  theatre  they  had  chosen 
enjoyed  a  considerable  vogue,  and  the  man  at 
the  window  could  offer  nothing  less  than  a  box. 
Shelby  was  staggered,  but  recalling  his  affluence, 
flirted  a  bill  through  the  opening  and  neglected 
to  count  his  change.  Not  until  the  usher  had 


216  THE    HENCHMAN 

brought  them  to  their  box  did  Mrs.  Milliard 
comprehend  the  situation.  She  whispered,  "  Oh, 
Ross  ! "  hesitated  an  instant,  then  entering,  laid 
aside  her  wraps  under  the  opera  glass  inquisition 
invited  by  her  blond  hair. 

"  How  could  you  ? "  she  murmured,  as  the 
house  darkened. 

"  I  wouldn't  back  down  before  that  ticket- 
seller  with  you  there  behind  looking  so  hand- 
some and  swell." 

"  We  should'never  have  come." 

Shelby  caught  her  fingers  in  a  reassuring 
squeeze. 

"  Don't  you  worry,"  he  enjoined.  "This  isn't 
the  Grand  Opera  House  of  New  Babylon." 

Perceiving  that  other  men  smoked,  Shelby  lit 
a  cigar,  and  as  the  plotless  play  began  to  unfold 
its  tuneful  fooling  Mrs.  Hilliard  forgot  to  be 
apprehensive.  She  observed  in  the  audience 
another  woman  with  blond  hair  sipping  some- 
thing from  a  glass,  and  wondered  if  she  were 
missing  an  opportunity  to  be  cosmopolitan.  If 
so,  she  deemed  it  the  part  of  wisdom  to  remain 
provincial,  for  it  had  not  escaped  her  notice  that 
since  dinner  her  mental  processes  had  undergone 
some  subtle  change.  For  one  thing,  her  sense 
of  humor  had  quickened.  Joe  had  often  main- 


THE    HENCHMAN  217 

tained  she  had  none.  If  Joe  could  see  her 
now  !  No  ;  that  was  not  her  meaning  precisely  ; 
but  at  any  rate,  it  had  quickened.  How  every 
antic  of  the  comedians  appealed  to  her !  The 
excessively  tall  and  the  excessively  short  Ger- 
mans who  talked  into  one  another's  teeth ;  the 
young  person  who  sang  coon  songs  in  a  fashion 
not  negro,  but  all  her  own ;  the  giant  with  a  bou- 
tonniere  which  a  midget  mounted  a  step-ladder  to 
spray  ;  the  famous  plump  beauty  whom  Shelby 
whispered  she  resembled  —  all  the  merry-andrew 
company  won  her  laughter  and  applause. 

Once  Shelby  laid  a  restraining  hand  upon  her 
arm,  but  she  laughed  the  more.  When  the  cur- 
tain fell  on  the  first  act  and  the  lights  went  up, 
she  was  laughing  still.  She  wondered  why  New 
Yorkers  stared  so.  Perhaps  they,  like  Shelby, 
who  had  oddly  shrunk  into  the  shadows  of  the 
box,  thought  she  resembled  the  plump  beauty 
for  whom  cigars  were  named.  She  stared  back 
at  them  collectively,  for  somehow  they  seemed  to 
wear  one  face.  It  was  a  thin,  clean-shaven  face, 
with  keen  eyes  behind  glittering  glasses ;  a  famil- 
iar face  —  the  face  of  the  editor  of  the  Tuscarora 
County  Whig. 


CHAPTER   X 

"You  had  better  walk  to  the  hotel,"  Shelby 
suggested.  With  the  darkening  of  the  theatre 
for  the  second  act  he  had  piloted  his  companion 
to  the  street.  "  It's  but  a  little  way." 

It  proved  a  great  way  as  he  contrived  it. 
Striking  across  town  to  one  of  the  quieter  ave- 
nues they  paced  block  after  block  in  the  teeth  of 
a  wind  which  smacked  of  salt.  At  length  Shelby 
brought  their  steps  to  a  right  about  and  headed 
for  their  destination,  just  short  of  which  his 
charge  abruptly  halted  with  an  hysterical  in-take 
of  breath. 

"  Not  yet,"  she  protested.  "  I  can't  go  in  yet. 
I  must  think  it  out  here  with  you.  I  daren't 
alone.  I'm  afraid  of  something  —  of  myself — I 
don't  know  what  —  " 

The  man  bent  a  critical  glance  upon  her. 

"  No  ;  I  guess  you're  not  quite  fit,"  he  decided. 
"  On  we  go." 

"  It's  awful !     He,  of  all  people  !  " 

"  Bad  mess." 

218 


THE    HENCHMAN  219 

"  He  could  ruin  me." 

Shelby  readily  pictured  a  few  ruins  of  his  own, 
but  chivalrously  refrained  from  their  presentment. 
His  predicament  occurred  to  her,  however. 

"  And  he  could  defeat  you  —  " 

"  Never  mind  me." 

"I  can't  stop  minding;  it's  too  late.  I've 
minded  so  long  —  too  long  and  too  much.  I've 

put    you    before    Joe  —  before     Milicent    even. 

I>  » 

ve  — 

"  Don't  say  anything  you'll  be  sorry  for,"  he 
interposed,  turning  into  a  side  street.  "You're 
on  your  nerves  —  flat  on  your  nerves." 

She  promptly  proved  his  assertion  by  slipping 
without  warning  from  his  side.  They  had 
chanced  abreast  of  a  rambling  little  church 
tucked  with  its  trees  and  shrubbery  and  green- 
sward amidst  buildings  which  dwarfed  its  tower 
to  a  pretty  toy.  Some  droll  giant  might  have 
plucked  it  out  of  Trollope  and  set  it  here  to 
throw  off  its  atmosphere  like  a  fragrance  from 
rectory  to  chantry.  Its  lich-gate  held  an  image 
before  which  Mrs.  Hilliard  melted  in  a  welter  of 
devotion. 

"  Tommyrot,"  fumed  her  guide,  nonplussed 
at  this  new  vagary. 

Ignored,     Shelby     braced     himself    patiently 


220  THE    HENCHMAN 

against  a  pillar  in  the  dusky  recess  while  the 
penitent  knelt  and  pattered  in  deeps  of  contri- 
tion which  the  ministrations  of  her  low-church 
rector  in  New  Babylon  had  never  plumbed.  But 
patience  vanished  at  the  sound  of  footsteps  up 
the  street. 

"  Quit  it,  that's  a  good  girl,"  he  begged,  recon- 
noitring. 

Despite  the  lively  devil's  deputy  at  elbow  the 
appeal  wavered  on. 

"It's  a  policeman  coming.  He'll  think  — " 
Shelby  broke  off  his  conjecture  to  utter  some 
banality  about  the  moon,  to  drown  her  invoca- 
tion. Wayside  prayers  were  no  more  a  novelty 
than  wayside  curses  in  this  region,  and  the  officer 
rolled  indifferently  by.  "  Now  go  back  to  your 
hotel,  and  get  to  bed,"  pleaded  the  man,  gasping 
like  a  criminal  with  a  reprieve.  "  Things  will 
look  brighter  in  the  morning.  I'll  be  in  to  see 
you  before  my  train  leaves." 

Her  devotions  at  an  end,  she  issued  docilely 
to  the  pavement,  saying,  "You  can't  know  the 
comfort." 

"  It's  a  pity  it  isn't  contagious,"  commented 
Shelby,  grimly ;  but  before  they  quitted  the 
shadows  for  the  lights  of  Fifth  Avenue  he  added 
gently  that  he  begrudged  her  nothing. 


THE    HENCHMAN  221 

Directly  he  saw  the  elevator  whisk  her  to  her 
room,  the  man  posted  back  to  the  music  hall  in 
search  of  Volney  Sprague.  What  he  should  say 
to  him  was  not  clear,  but  see  him  he  must.  Out 
of  the  jumble  of  his  thoughts  that  idea  beset  him 
like  an  obsession.  The  audience  had  begun  to 
trickle  into  Broadway,  and  as  the  stream  broad- 
ened to  fill  the  doorway  he  was  hard  put  to  it  to 
scan  every  face,  but  he  persisted  till  the  last 
loiterer  had  left.  Then  an  attendant  told  him 
that  the  place  had  yet  another  exit  upon  another 
street,  which,  beyond  all  doubt,  the  editor  had 
used. 

Baffled,  but  not  without  resource,  he  turned 
again  to  the  newspapers  and  rummaged  the  lists 
of  hotel  arrivals  for  Sprague's  unnoteworthy 
name.  Naturally  too  obscure  for  mention ! 
Yet  in  the  same  breath  it  started  out  at  him 
from  miscellaneous  political  gossip  as  one  of  the 
day's  callers  at  the  headquarters  of  a  local  revolt 
against  the  machine.  Shelby  construed  the  visit 
as  a  still  hunt  for  funds,  and,  in  the  light  of  his 
own  financial  rebound,  meant  to  have  his  chuckle 
from  it,  should  he  ever  unhorse  the  worry  by 
which  he  was  hag-rid.  Consulting  a  city  direc- 
tory, he  set  forth  on  a  fagging  tramp  from  hotel 
to  hotel  — a  quest  barren  of  result  for  the  excellent 


222  THE    HENCHMAN 

reason  that  Sprague,  according  to  his  custom,  had 
registered  at  the  Reform  Club. 

Late  to  bed,  and  after  persistent  sheep-count- 
ing, much  later  to  sleep,  Shelby  woke  with  the 
morning  far  advanced  and  the  hour  of  his  depart- 
ure near.  It  was  necessary  to  eke  out  his  ward- 
robe with  a  purchase  or  two  against  the  journey 
with  the  governor,  and  between  his  shopping 
and  his  breakfast,  the  deliberate  talk  he  had 
meant  to  have  with  Mrs.  Milliard  bade  fair 
to  dwindle  to  a  handshake.  As  the  morning 
brought  no  grounds  for  optimism,  he  was  not 
altogether  sorry  that  the  interview  must  be  short ; 
indeed,  by  daylight  his  own  necessity  seemed  the 
more  pressing ;  but  he  faced  his  obligations,  and 
prepared  himself  for  the  role  of  Sturdy  Oak  to 
Mrs.  Milliard's  Clinging  Vine.  His  astonish- 
ment, therefore,  was  doubly  great  when  he 
learned  that  the  Vine  had  developed  a  backbone 
of  its  own,  and  left  the  hotel,  bag  and  baggage, 
upward  of  an  hour  ago. 

Being  a  practical  man,  Shelby  promptly  made 
friends  with  the  baggage  agent,  who  recalled  that 
the  "  blond  lady's "  belongings  had  been  for- 
warded to  the  Grand  Central  Station,  —  Shelby's 
own  destination,  —  whose  waiting-hall  the  per- 
plexed candidate  was  shortly  scouring  in  pursuit. 


THE    HENCHMAN 


223 


The  sequel  was  unexpected.  He  did  not  find 
Mrs.  Hilliard,  but  he  did  stumble  fairly  into 
the  arms  of  Volney  Sprague. 

Startled,  but  outwardly  self-assured,  he  half 
offered  his  hand. 

The  editor  gave  him  a  perfunctory  good  morn- 
ing, but  his  own  right  hand  made  no  movement 
to  free  itself  from  the  magazine  whose  leaves  he 
had  been  turning  at  the  news-stand. 

Shelby  slid  his  extended  fingers  forward  hap- 
hazard to  a  learned  periodical,  which  fell  open  to 
a  discussion  of  cuneiform  inscriptions. 

"  Are  you  bound  for  Tuscarora,  too  ? "  he 
inquired. 

"  I'm  going  home." 

"Which  train?" 

Sprague  named  his  train  after  a  leisured  mo- 
ment's study  of  an  illustration. 

"  That's  my  own  —  or  will  be,  rather,  till 
Albany,  where  our  car  gets  its  own  engine. 
I'm  in  for  a  day  or  two's  campaigning  with  his 
Excellency ;  rear  end  speeches,  and  that  sort  of 
thing,  you  know." 

The  editor  was  unimpressed. 

"  If  you  care  to  drop  in,  I'll  introduce  you  to 
the  governor." 

"  Thanks,  no.     We've  met." 


224  THE    HENCHMAN 

Shelby's  color  mounted  under  repeated  re- 
buff, and  his  self-respect  was  nil ;  but  a  sincere 
desire  to  shield  the  woman  whose  folly  he  had 
abetted,  rose  beside  the  spectre  of  defeat  to  drive 
him  on. 

"  See  here,  Sprague,"  he  said  abruptly  ;  "  that 
was  an  awkward  thing  last  night  —  " 

"  To  see  me  ?  " 

"  The  general  look  of  it,"  came  laboriously. 
"You  understand  I  —  she  —  " 

"  Excuse  me"  put  in  the  editor,  dropping  his 
magazine  and  backing  off. 

Shelby  anchored  him  by  a  lapel. 

"We've  got  to  have  this  out.  I  want  you  to 
understand  that  she  was  unwell  —  despondent  ^- 
malaria,  you  know  —  and  resorted  to  —  " 

"  Laughing  gas  is  your  plausible  defence." 

Shelby  went  brick-red. 

"  Be  a  gentleman,"  he  said. 

"  Gad ! "  Sprague  quenched  a  wry  smile. 
"  And  from  you  !  What  are  you  after  ?  " 

"  Are  you  going  to  use  this  ?  " 

Volney  Sprague  started,  glared,  and  fell  to  vio- 
lent polishing  of  his  eye-glasses. 

"After  all,"  Shelby  blundered  on,  "she  has 
been  your  friend  —  entertained  you  —  the  club 
and  all  that  —  and  you  couldn't  —  " 


THE    HENCHMAN  225 

"  Did  she  send  you  to  me  ? "  broke  in  Sprague, 
fiercely. 

"She?  No.  I'm  responsible.  I  thought 
perhaps  you  —  it's  been  a  bitter  political  fight 
—  you  might  be  tempted  —  I  admit  it  is  a  temp- 
tation—  to  make  capital — " 

"  Gad !  "  The  editor  spat  out  his  favorite 
ejaculation  as  if  it  were  a  toad. 

"We  ought  to  spare  her  —  to  spare  a  woman." 

"  Don't,  don't,  don't,"  protested  Sprague. 
"Can't  you  see  —  can't  you  see  that  no  decent 
man  —  no  ;  you  couldn't  see  that.  Use  a  thing 
of  this  sort?  Faugh!"  He  swung  on  his  heel 
and  plunged  through  a  nearby  doorway  to  the 
open  air. 

The  result  was  tangible,  but  he  had  paid  for  it 
with  the  most  abasing  quarter-hour  of  his  life, 
and  Shelby,  too,  craved  another  atmosphere. 
And  he  obtained  it.  The  governor,  his  private 
secretary,  one  or  two  members  of  his  staff,  a 
state  senator  popularly  known  as  "Handsome" 
Ludlow,  and  the  newspaper  correspondents  who 
were  to  accompany  the  party,  were  clustered 
sociably  in  the  observation  compartment  of  the 
private  car,  and  on  Shelby's  entrance  every  man 
jack  of  them  got  upon  his  legs  to  welcome  him, 
as  if  the  Boss  had  twitched  them  by  unseen 


226  THE    HENCHMAN 

strings.  His  Excellency  clapped  him  graciously 
on  the  shoulder,  the  staff  officials  and  the  secre- 
tary reflected  and  passed  on  the  gubernatorial 
warmth,  the  senator  pressed  cigars,  and  the  news- 
paper people,  whose  habit  was  to  lump  all  per- 
sonages as  frail  humanity,  went  through  their 
introductions  like  the  good  fellows  that  they 
were.  It  was  unlocked  for,  delightful,  insidi- 
ously flattering  —  a  plain  intimation  that  he  had 
become  a  star  of  greater  magnitude. 

"  We're  due  to  pull  out  in  three  minutes,"  the 
governor  told  him.  "  I  was  really  worried  about 
you." 

In  their  several  echoes  the  secretary  and  staff 
conveyed  that  they  too  had  known  alarm. 

"  Fact  is,  we  bank  on  you  to  mesmerize  the 
rural  vote,"  put  in  Handsome  Ludlow,  jocosely. 
"  You'll  work  your  passage  all  right,  all  right." 

The  jest  carried  a  covert  truth.  They  did 
count  on  Shelby,  and  Shelby  did  work  his  passage 
in  sober  earnest.  The  governor  who  sought 
reelection  was  a  mediocrity  of  means  —  a  barrel, 
as  the  phrase  goes  —  whose  function  in  campaign- 
ing was  to  draw  checks,  shed  radiance  on  cheering 
crowds,  and  make  way  for  speakers  who  had 
something  to  utter  besides  hems  and  haws.  No 
one  could  be  less  fitted  for  the  five-minute  give- 


THE    HENCHMAN  227 

and-take  talks  from  the  rear  platform  than  this 
amiable  figurehead,  and  no  one  of  his  company 
was  so  much  at  home  in  it  as  Shelby,  on  whom 
the  brunt  swiftly  fell.  The  senator,  the  staff  offi- 
cials, and  even  the  poor  governor  were  passable 
in  the  deliberate  evening  meetings  for  which  they 
were  billed  in  this  town  and  that  —  though  here, 
too,  Shelby  frequently  snatched  the  honors  ;  but 
the  heady  victory  over  the  chaffing,  brawling,  even 
missile-throwing  packs  surging  round  the  car 
wheels  and  up  the  steps,  was  always  his  and  his 
alone.  Suggested  to  fill  an  unexpected  vacancy, 
he  was  quick  to  appreciate  that  chance,  and  the 
Boss  had  given  him  the  opportunity  of  his  life ; 
and  with  an  eye  on  another  campaign  two  years 
hence,  and  with  the  heartening  thought  that  by 
now  the  State  Committee's  dollars  were  implant- 
ing convictions  throughout  the  Demijohn  Dis- 
trict's fertile  soil,  he  put  forth  the  impetuous  best 
that  was  in  him. 

Nor  was  Shelby's  best  contemptible.  The 
charge  up  the  canal  counties  had  not  measured 
half  its  course  before  the  increasing  crowds,  the 
space  given  his  doings  by  the  correspondents 
whose  good  graces  he  seduously  cultivated,  the 
deference  of  his  Excellency  and .  his  chameleon 
staff,  all  told  him  that  the  glory  of  what  the 


228  THE    HENCHMAN 

party  organs  courteously  styled  the  "  governor's 
brilliant  dash"  was  his  and  not  the  governor's. 

"  What  we  didn't  count  on,"  observed  Hand- 
some Ludlow,  with  a  touch  of  envy,  "  was  cam- 
paigning with  a  whirlwind." 


CHAPTER  XI 

So  Shelby  came  in  triumph  to  his  own  people, 
the  governor  at  his  chariot  wheel,  and  fought  the 
last  stubborn  week  of  his  campaign.  His  mail 
was  now  burdened  with  invitations  to  speak,  but 
he  made  few  speeches. 

"The  voter  a  speech  will  influence  has  made 
up  his  mind,"  he  said  to  Bowers.  "  The  heart- 
to-heart  talk  is  the  trump  card  of  the  eleventh 
hour." 

To  play  this  card  required  a  prodigious  amount 
of  travelling  about  the  district;  and  between  these 
activities  and  the  speaking  engagements  he  was  in 
promise  bound  to  fulfil,  Shelby  saw  little  or  noth- 
ing of  New  Babylon  till  midnight  of  Saturday, 
which  was  the  virtual  end  of  the  canvass.  Seen 
again,  as  he  viewed  it  now,  the  town  would  look 
raw  and  provincial  despite  patriotic  throes  of  self- 
deception.  On  moonlit  nights  the  New  Babylon 
Electric  Light  and  Power  Company  hoarded  its 
energies,  and  an  inky  pall  accordingly  lay  over  the 
muddy  streets  which  the  pale  melon  rind  in  the 

229 


230  THE    HENCHMAN 

clouded  zenith  did  nothing  to  dissipate.  The  con- 
trast between  this  niggardliness  and  the  midnight 
brilliance  of  up-town  Broadway  was  inevitable, 
and  the  jolting  Tuscarora  House  free  'bus  came 
readily  into  unflattering  comparison  with  a  certain 
rubber-tired  hansom  cab.  Naturally  midnight,  a 
jaded  body,  and  the  Tuscarora  House  free  'bus 
might  well  jaundice  any  scene  ;  but  the  returning 
native  recognized  these  as  accidents  merely  in  the 
phenomenon  of  his  changed  vision. 

The  hotel  bar-room  was  boisterous  with  the 
usual  Saturday  night  gathering  of  the  set  which 
in  its  innocence  supposed  itself  fast,  and  the  ma- 
turer  poker  crowd,  Shelby's  own  cronies,  was  in 
protracted  session  elsewhere  in  the  building ;  but 
he  managed  to  evade  them  all  and  lock  himself  in 
his  ugly  room.  For  some  sophisticated  weeks  he 
had  suspected  the  household  gods  here  assembled 
to  have  feet  of  clay.  Now  he  knew  it ;  but  with 
the  feeling  that  the  place  was  a  temporary  husk  at 
best,  he  avoided  a  too  particular  inventory  of  the 
pseudo-marble  clock,  the  vases  of  pampas  grass, 
the  album,  and  the  garish  pictures  against  their 
background  of  pink  roses  blushing  in  a  terra- 
cotta field,  and  ran  drowsily  over  the  little  pile 
of  accumulated  mail. 

With    one    exception    he    found   a   politician's 


THE    HENCHMAN 


231 


budget,  and  the  exception  brushed  its  fellows 
imperiously  aside.  It  was  a  tinted  intriguing 
thing,  faintly  odorous  of  patchouli ;  its  contents 
without  date,  superscription,  or  signature,  though 
for  the  reader  the  scent  was  Mrs.  Milliard  writ 
large ;  a  single  straggling  line  of  characterless 
script. 

"  Why,"  it  inquired,  "  have  you  forsaken  me  ?  " 

The  man  yawned. 

He  awoke  refreshed  and  lay  in  snug  indolence 
listening  to  the  rival  sextons  pealing  first  bell  for 
Sunday  service.  Whatever  their  doctrinal  dis- 
putes, the  churches  of  New  Babylon  made  a  shift 
for  concord  when  it  came  to  bell-ringing,  whose 
stately  performance  was  regarded  by  no  less  a 
theological  expert  than  the  Widow  Weatherwax 
as  "  spiritoolly  edifyin'  and  condoocive  to  grace." 
Drifting  between  cat-naps  Shelby  usually  found  it 
a  fillip  to  the  fancy.  He  would  detect  infant 
damnation  and  argument  for  sprinkling  in  the 
deep  boom  of  the  Presbyterian  bell,  and  instant 
dissent  in  the  querulous  note  of  the  Baptist,  whose 
echo  droned  "  i-m-m-e-r-s-i-o-n "  to  infinity. 
This  was  the  cue  for  a  jaunty  flaunting  of  apos- 
tolic succession  on  the  part  of  the  Episcopalian 
sexton,  only  to  be  himself  reminded  by  the  First 
Methodist  that  there  were  bishops  and  bishops. 


232  THE   HENCHMAN 

So  on,  assertion,  rejoinder,  surrejoinder,  and  rebut- 
tal, till  the  dispassionate  philosopher  in  the  pillows 
wearied  of  his  conceit  and  directed  his  thoughts 
toward  breakfast. 

From  breakfast  Shelby  ordinarily  turned  to  the 
sporting  columns  of  the  Sunday  papers,  but  to- 
day he  found  his  thoughts  reverting  to  church- 
going  as  a  not  unpleasant  sedative  after  the  storm 
and  stress  of  his  campaign.  Reasons  multiplied  : 
it  would  be  a  sop  to  the  prejudices  of  no  small 
body  of  the  voting  population  ;  an  act  of  tolerance 
worthy  of  a  mind  open  to  broad  horizons ;  a 
lightning-rod  for  supernatural  approval  of  his 
cause  ;  and  a  simple  means  of  falling  in  with  Ruth 
Temple,  since  by  a  happy  coincidence  Ruth  Tem- 
ple and  a  large  block  of  the  church-going  vote 
worshipped  under  the  same  spire.  Some  little 
time  later,  therefore,  Shelby  was  ushered  to  a 
prominent  seat  in  the  midst  of  a  decorous  flurry 
of  excitement  which  stirred  the  Presbyterian  con- 
gregation from  choir-loft  to  rearmost  pew.  Un- 
known to  the  visitor,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Hewett  was 
scheduled  to  preach  on  the  ethical  issues  involved 
in  the  present  election. 

The  minister  entered  the  pulpit  almost  imme- 
diately and  laid  eyes  upon  Shelby  as  he  announced 
the  opening  hymn,  coloring  at  the  discovery. 


THE    HENCHMAN  233 

His  voice  wavered  perceptibly  in  the  earlier  parts 
of  the  service  as  the  absorbed  congregation  noted  ; 
but  by  sermon  time  he  had  conquered  his  ner- 
vousness, and  with  set  jaw  thundered  out  his  text 
from  Jeremiah  :  "  Why  trimmest  thou  thy  way  ?  " 
With  this  entering  wedge  the  parson  clove  into 
an  analysis  of  practical  politics  which  did  not  st'ck 
at  instancing  corruption  near  at  hand,  and  whose 
climax  was  a  bitter  denunciation  of  ignoble  leader- 
ship and  the  doubly  ignoble  laxity  of  the  indiffer- 
ent led.  It  was  as  pointed  an  attack  on  local 
conditions  as  he  could  frame  without  complica- 
tions with  his  deacons,  who  were  politically  of 
divers  minds,  and  the  fusion  managers  might 
have  used  its  final  exhortation  to  "  vote  your  con- 
science "  as  their  own  ammunition,  without  alter- 
ing a  word. 

Shelby  sat  under  it  all  like  a  graven  image, 
careless  of  the  raking  fire  of  eyes  from  every 
point,  sang  "America"  with  unction  at  the  close, 
and  advancing  with  the  benediction  to  the  pulpit 
stair,  congratulated  the  bewildered  clergyman  on 
his  "  effort,"  and  before  he  could  conceive,  much 
less  deliver,  a  coherent  reply,  slipped  down  a  side 
aisle  and  greeted  Ruth. 

"Vigorous,  but  intemperate,"  said  he,  "and  typi- 
cally ministerial.  The  right  road  and  the  wrong 


234  THE    HENCHMAN 

road  in  politics  don't  abound  in  sign-posts,  and 
pretty  frequently  both  carry  grist  to  the  same  mill." 

The  riddle  of  his  character  piqued  Ruth  at  that 
moment  as  it  never  had,  and  before  they  separated 
he  obtained  permission  to  call  upon  her  after  tea 
—  a  privilege  which  he  interpreted  as  license  to 
present  himself  betimes  and  stay  to  an  unconscion- 
able hour.  Yet  he  talked  fluently  and  well,  and 
went  out  at  length  into  the  night  tingling  with 
the  consciousness  of  having  touched  ringers  with 
the  higher  life  of  his  cherished  aspirations.  By 
the  token  of  Ruth's  interest,  moreover,  he  took 
hope  that  he  had  not  been  found  wanting  where 
he  was  most  ambitious  to  excel.  It  was  a  thing 
to  lay  to  heart,  an  epochal  page  in  his  history 
which  sleep  alone  could  fitly  round.  Neverthe- 
less, a  disturbing  impression  of  something  essen- 
tial left  undone  haunted  the  borderland  of  dreams 
to  remain  formless  till  morning,  when  his  pocket 
handkerchief  jerked  a  note  odorous  of  patchouli 
to  his  bedroom  floor. 

It  was  annoying.  Of  course  Mrs.  Hilliard  had 
a  certain  claim,  and  had  he  been  less  occupied  on 
his  return  from  stumping  the  state  with  the  gov- 
ernor he  would  have  gone  to  her.  By  rights  he 
should  have  made  the  effort  to  see  her  after  re- 
ceiving this  message  —  yesterday,  in  fact ;  yester- 


THE    HENCHMAN 


235 


day  the  golden.  He  would  have  gone,  too,  if — 
frankly,  if  the  stature  of  the  man  he  had  become 
had  less  exacting  ideals  of  womanly  perfection. 
To  the  grown  man  of  broadened  horizon  Mrs. 
Hilliard  had  come  indubitably  to  seem  a  bore. 
Still,  she  had  her  claim. 

"  I'll  drop  in  after  election,"  he  decided,  and 
laid  his  hand  to  the  day's  work. 

It  proved  a  long,  hard  pull,  made  up  of  details 
petty  enough  in  themselves,  but  considerable  in 
their  relation  to  the  whole  scheme  of  his  defence. 
However,  he  reached  its  end  cheery  in  the  belief 
that  the  sun  of  Tuesday  would  light  no  Waterloo. 

"  I'll  win,"  he  said  to  Bowers.  "  By  no  walk- 
over, I  admit ;  but  I'll  win." 

"  M-yes  ;  I  guess,  but  by  the  narrowest  margin 
the  Demijohn  ever  gave.  The  slightest  flurry 
might  snow  us  under." 

"  I'd  stake  my  head  on  it." 

"  Some  who  have  betted  less  than  that  have 
hedged." 

"  Who  ?  "  exclaimed  the  candidate,  quickly. 

"Tuscarora  House  sports  —  I  won't  mention 
names  —  but  poker  friends  of  yours." 

"  Sandy  lot,  they  are,"  broke  out  Shelby,  con- 
temptuously. "  I  hope  you  counteracted  the 
effect." 


236  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  I  instructed  some  of  our  people  to  cover 
everything  they  would  put  up,"  Bowers  answered 
dryly.  "  You  know  I  don't  bet  myself." 

Shelby  guffawed  and  clapped  him  on  the 
shoulder. 

"  Same  way  you  don't  stoop  to  buy  the  pur- 
chasable ?  Lord  !  If  the  Tuscarora  floaters  only 
knew  their  Santa  Claus  !  " 

But  Bowers  merely  coughed. 

Tickled  with  his  joke  at  the  expense  of  his 
associate  whose  handling  of  the  State  Committee's 
saving  aid  had  been  masterly,  Shelby  went  to  his 
evening  meal  in  a  humor  which  even  a  second 
note  from  Mrs.  Hilliard  could  not  damp.  In 
scent,  brevity,  and  chirography  it  was  the  counter- 
part of  the  first,  telling  him  that  the  nameless 
writer  was  wretched,  and  begging  him  to  come  to 
her.  The  appeal  found  him  in  a  softened  mood. 
Viewed  at  the  close  of  an  irksome  day,  Mrs.  Hil- 
liard's  society  had  attractions  which  his  hypercriti- 
cal mind  of  the  morning  hours  slighted  ;  and  while 
her  message  in  itself  left  his  withers  unwrung,  he 
concluded  that  it  was  perhaps  as  well  to  break 
gently  with  "  poor  Cora  "  now,  as  later,  when  pos- 
sibly greater  growth  and  broader  horizons  might 
create  barriers  yet  more  awkward.  Under  a  show 
of  letter-writing,  accordingly,  he  lingered  in  the 


THE    HENCHMAN  237 

hotel  office  till  he  was  certain  that  Joe  Hilliard  had 
joined  his  boon  companions  of  the  billiard  room, 
when  he  let  himself  quietly  out  of  doors  and 
made  his  way  to  the  quarry  owner's  home. 

"  I  was  afraid  you  might  come,  and  then  that 
you  mightn't,"  the  woman  whispered,  in  the 
obscurity  of  the  hall.  "  Joe  had  a  headache,  and 
said  at  first  that  he  wouldn't  go  out  to-night; 
but  he  went." 

"Yes;   I  know.      Servants  out ?" 

"  Oh,  yes." 

"And  Milicent?  "  he  pursued,  scorning  hypoc- 
risy. 

"  I  let  her  go  away  for  the  night.  The  poor 
child  needed  a  change." 

As  they  left  the  hall  he  discovered  that  she 
was  in  evening  dress  —  the  black  gown  glittering 
with  jet  beads  and  bugles  which  she  had  intro- 
duced at  the  first  autumn  meeting  of  the  Culture 
Club.  He  held  her  hand  high,  and  turned  her 
slowly  round  after  the  manner  of  the  dance. 

"  Did  you  do  that  for  me  ?  "  he  asked,  his  face 
lighting. 

She  nodded. 

"  I  wore  it  the  night  of  your  nomination,  and 
I  put  it  on  to-night  to  bring  you  luck  at  the 
polls.  Was  it  silly  of  me  ?  " 


238  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Not  if  somebody  else  doesn't  see." 

"Joe'll   not    see.     I    shall    have    gone  to   my 

room  before  he  comes.     I'll  not  keep  you  long. 

It's    enough   that  you've    proved    you    cared    to 

come.     It's  a  crumb  of  comfort  in  my  wretched- 


ness. 

cc 


You  know  I've  been  on  the  jump,"  he  re- 
turned, adding  dryly,  "  You  don't  look  as 
wretched  as  your  note  led  me  to  expect." 

"  You  can't  know." 

"  Not  till  I'm  told." 

"  The  scene  there's  been,  I  mean." 

"  Scene  ?     Wfiat  scene  ?  " 

"  With  Joe — about  you  —  New  York — every- 
thing." 

"  There  wasn't  need  for  a  word.  Nobody's 
blabbed.  I  saw  to  that.  I  went  to  Sprague  in 
New  York." 

"  I  told  Joe,"  she  confessed.  "  You  didn't 
come  that  morning  —  and  I  was  frightened.  I 
thought  if  stories  were  to  get  to  him,  I'd  best  be 
the  one  to  tell  them.  So  I  left  at  once." 

"  If  you  had  only  waited." 

"  If  you  had  only  got  word  to  me." 

They  fell  into  explanation  of  their  several 
movements,  from  which  Shelby,  white-faced,  sud- 
denly cut  loose,  saying  :  — 


THE    HENCHMAN 


239 


"  What  does  he  know  ?  For  God's  sake,  what 
does  he  know  ?  What  did  you  tell  ?  " 

"  Oh,  that  I  met  you,  had  dinner,  went  to  the 
theatre  —  " 

"Then  why  —  " 

"  I'm  coming  to  that.  While  we  were  away 
somebody  —  Mrs.  Weatherwax,  I  suppose  —  filled 
Joe  full  of  malicious  town  gossip  about  our  — 
our  friendship  —  and  he  was  terrible.  Oh,  you 
can't  know,  you  can't  know ! " 

"But  me  —  me!"  cried  Shelby,  clutching  her 
by  the  arms.  "  What  about  me  ?  Is  he  down 
on  me?  His  votes,  —  his  two  hundred  votes, 
you  know,  —  they  could  defeat  me  —  ruin  me! 
Tell  me  —  tell  me  —  " 

"  No,  no ;  it's  not  you  he  blames ;  not  you, 
Ross.  It's  I.  He  thinks  I'm  a  fool  —  the 
brute  !  He  calls  me  a  fool !  " 

"  Thank  God  !  Thank  God  !  "  ejaculated  the 
man,  laughing  wildly  in  his  revulsion  of  relief. 

"  But  I  —  I  am  miserable,"  sobbed  the  woman, 
and  clung  to  him  when  he  would  have  released 
her.  "  You  will  go  to  your  triumph  and  your 
future,  —  what  have  I  left  now?" 

Shelby  swayed  unsteadily  with  his  burden,  his 
eyes  on  the  perfect  shoulders  whose  curves  played 
and  quivered  with  the  labored  breath.  He  re- 


240  THE    HENCHMAN 

called  a  fragment  of  poetry  —  something  about 
"  morbid  .  .  .  faultless  shoulder-blades,"  which 
he  had  overheard  Bernard  Graves  quote  to  Vol- 
ney  Sprague  as  Mrs.  Hilliard  passed  at  the  club. 
Morbid  had  seemed  an  inept  word  then,  but  he 
began  to  spy  out  a  certain  fitness.  The  house 
was  too  still  by  far  —  dangerously  still;  the 
stillness  of  espionage.  With  a  flash  of  intuition 
he  lifted  his  eyes,  and  in  the  doorway  met  Joe 
Hilliard.  Almost  at  the  same  instant  the  woman 
in  her  trumpery  saw  him  too. 

"Joe ! "  she  called,  in  an  incredulous,  husky 
whisper.  "  Joe  !  " 

He  loomed  there  in  the  dusk  like  a  rock,  and 
with  a  frightened  whimper  she  tottered  and  clung 
to  him  as  she  had  clung  to  Shelby. 

"  I'm  not  a  bad  woman,  Joe,"  she  babbled. 
"  I'm  not  a  bad  woman." 

"  No  one  has  accused  you,"  replied  her  hus- 
band, putting  her  gently  away. 

"  Nor  am  I  what  you  doubtless  think,"  stam- 
mered Shelby.  "  It's  all  a  mistake,  Joe  ;  a  big 
mistake.  It  can  be  explained — it  can  be  ex- 
plained —  " 

Hilliard  doubled  and  relaxed  a  mighty  fist. 

"  No ;  not  under  this  roof,"  he  said  quietly. 
"  Go ! " 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE  scandal  derived  its  impetus  from  the 
vulgar  circumstance  that  the  Milliard  washing 
went  to  line  on  Tuesday  (Monday  having  dawned 
lowering  and  ended  stormy),  thereby  exposing 
more  family  linen  than  could  possibly  have  been 
foreseen,  since  the  day  laundress  and  Mrs.  Mill- 
iard's housemaid  were  bound  in  friendship  by  a 
common  appetite  for  gossip  and  for  tea.  Mon- 
day's unfinished  labors  despatched,  these  familiars 
laid  their  heads  together  over  a  pannikin  of  their 
favorite  brew,  and  the  laundress,  poising  her  saucer 
with  the  elegance  which  was  the  envy  of  her  circle, 
ventured  the  opinion  that  the  housemaid  was 
holding  in  reserve  a  palate-tickling  morsel  con- 
cerning the  missus ;  whereupon  the  housemaid 
cloaked  herself  afresh  with  mystery  and  "  suspi- 
cioned"  that  she  could  tell  things  if  she  were  one 
of  those  odious  persons  who  carried  tales,  which 
of  course  she  was  not. 

Blowing  and  sipping  with  the  calm  which  is  the 
handmaiden  of  true  elegance,  the  laundress  con- 
ceded both  propositions,  and  edged  forward  the 
R  241 


242  THE    HENCHMAN 

suggestion  that  tale-bearing  and  confidence  be- 
tween intimates  were  horses  of  dissimilar  color. 
This  was  readily  admitted  by  the  housemaid  with 
its  corollary  that  anything  intrusted  in  confidence 
to  the  bosom  of  the  laundress  was  as  good  as 
locked  in  the  mute  confines  of  the  tomb.  With 
these  time-honored  preliminaries  the  crisis  above 
stairs  as  seen  from  below  stairs  was  promptly 
bared  to  the  scalpel. 

"  Whin  he  come  home  lasht  night  He  was 
here,"  the  housemaid  imparted  in  a  whisper. 

The  laundress  hurdled  the  ambiguous  pronouns 
like  a  thoroughbred. 

"  Is  it  th'  trut'  ye're  tellin'  me  ? "  she  demanded, 
forgetting  her  graces,  and  grounding  her  saucer 
with  a  clatter. 

"  Cross  me  hear-rt,"  said  the  housemaid,  enjoy- 
ing her  sensation. 

"  Ye'll  excuse  me  intherruptin'  —  " 

"Ye're  no  intherruptin'.  'Tis  th'  ind  iv  th' 
shtory." 

"  But  phat  did  th'  good  ma-an  say  ? " 

As  the  faithful  soul  did  not  know,  she  remarked 
that  there  were  some  things  which  a  lady  in 
her  delicate  position  could  not  confide  even  to  a 
bosom  friend.  She  hinted,  however,  that  in  the 
light  of  what  she  had  told  the  laundress  a  week 


THE    HENCHMAN  243 

ago  of  the  family  jar  occasioned  by  Her  meeting 
Him  in  New  York,  the  present  state  of  things  was 
easy  to  conjecture. 

But  the  laundress  thirsted  for  details. 

"  Was  his  dayparture  suddin  like  ?  "  she  asked. 

Feeling  that  the  force  of  her  narrative  might 
suffer  from  the  admission  that  she  had  only  en- 
tered the  house  by  a  side  door  after  she  had  met 
Him  walking  rapidly  away  from  the  front,  the 
housemaid  answered  merely  by  moving  sighs. 
The  laundress  reasoned  from  past  experience  that 
the  font  had  gone  dry,  and  suddenly  remembered 
that  she  was  promised  to  help  with  the  Bowers's 
heavy  ironing.  This  was  at  a  quarter  before  nine 
o'clock. 

At  ten  minutes  past  nine  o'clock  the  laundress 
remarked  across  the  ironing-board  to  Mrs.  Bowers 
that  if  she  were  one  of  those  odious  persons  who 
carried  tales,  which  of  course  she  was  not,  she 
could  expose  the  carryings-on  of  somebody  living 
not  a  hundred  miles  away  to  a  tune  which  would 
bring  the  blush  to  New  Babylon's  outraged  cheek. 
Mrs.  Bowers  made  haste  to  answer  that  she  was 
of  principle  firmly  opposed  to  gossip ;  but  as 
an  intelligent  woman,  she  recognized  that  certain 
things  require  ventilation  for  the  good  of  the 
community,  and  was  accustomed  in  such  emergen- 


244  THE    HENCHMAN 

cies  to  send  personal  reluctance  to  the  rear.  The 
tale  of  how  He  coming  unexpectedly  home  found 
Him  with  Her  was  then  put  through  its  paces  with 
such  skilful  jockeying  that  not  one  in  ten  would 
know  it  for  the  same  dobbin  so  lately  brought 
limping  to  the  light. 

As  now  set  forth,  He  had  fathomed  Her  and 
Him  with  more  shrewdness  than  the  world  had 
given  him  credit  for  possessing — poor  man!  — 
and  had  been  hoodwinked  by  their  transparent 
devices  for  meeting  at  the  golf  links  and  on  lonely 
country  roads  no  more  than  had  Mrs.  Bowers  or 
any  other  person  of  equal  virtue  and  capacity. 
He  had  seen,  and  he  had  warned.  Then,  stolen 
sweets  becoming  perilous  near  home,  the  culprits 
had  taken  their  several  ways  to  New  York, — 
most  fit  choice  for  such  a  pilgrimage  !  This  too 
was  fathomed  and  forgiven.  O  unwise  clemency  ! 
O  base  requital  !  Violence  upon  discovery  ?  No 
doubt.  Loaded  pistol  constantly  in  the  house 
since  the  last  burglar  scare.  At  this  Mrs.  Bowers 
recollected  shots  in  the  night ;  Seneca  had  said 
"  Campaign  fireworks  "  ;  but  she  knew  better ; 
shots,  of  course.  Dreadful  thing  to  happen  at 
one's  very  door.  An  immediate  separation  natu- 
rally. By  all  the  laws  of  righteousness  she  should 
not  be  given  the  custody  of  the  child. 


THE    HENCHMAN  245 

In  affairs  requiring  ventilation  for  the  common 
good  Mrs.  Bowers  could  conceive  of  no  instru- 
ment so  sure  as  the  Widow  Weatherwax,  who 
providentially  dropped  in  to  borrow  flour  at  the 
precise  moment  Mrs.  Bowers  had  decided  that  if 
she  ever  meant  to  run  over  and  copy  the  widow's 
unequalled  recipe  for  floating  island,  this  was  the 
time  to  do  it.  Quite  in  the  same  breath  with  her 
greetings,  therefore,  Mrs.  Bowers  intimated  that 
were  she  one  of  those  odious  persons  who  carried 
tales,  which  of  course  she  was  not,  she  could 
astonish  the  widow  with  a  chronicle  of  happenings 
not  remote  in  time  or  scene.  But  when  told,  the 
widow  was  not  astonished. 

"  I've  knowed  she  wuz  a  Scarlet  Woman  since 
the  last  night  ov  the  camp-meetin'  at  Eden 
Centre,"  she  explained.  "  It  come  to  me  when 
I  see  her  a-standin'  outside  the  circle,  and  it  was 
borne  in  on  me  to  testify  b'fore  the  brethren." 

In  this,  its  third  edition,  the  tale  gained  pictu- 
resqueness  and  circumstantial  weight.  To  the 
New  York  episode  the  widow  contributed  the 
imaginative  touch  of  a  baffled  detective,  while 
Mrs.  Bowers's  shots  in  the  stilly  night  passed 
into  the  province  of  undisputed  fact.  The  cir- 
cumstance that  the  widow  had  only  that  morning 
seen  the  destroyer  of  homes  walking  abroad  un- 


246  THE    HENCHMAN 

maimed,  was  but  touching  evidence  that  the  hus- 
band had  been  too  grief-crazed  to  send  a  bullet  to 
the  mark.  The  widow  almost  remembered  that 
the  destroyer  had  limped ;  therefore  the  injured 
man  must  have  resorted  to  natural  weapons. 
Doubtless  the  beginning  of  proceedings  for  an 
absolute  divorce  hung  fire  only  because  this  was 
a  legal  holiday. 

As  the  clock  in  the  town  hall  struck  ten  the 
good  women  parted  company,  and  the  now 
able-bodied  scandal  careered  bravely  into  the 
world.  Tinctured  by  personal  equation,  the 
respective  variants  of  Mrs.  Bowers  and  Mrs. 
Weatherwax  had  minor  differences  in  the  dra- 
matic grouping  of  detail,  but  they  were  variants, 
nevertheless,  and  adhered  in  all  essentials  to  the 
notable  fabric  these  ladies  had  joined  forces  to 
erect. 

Early  in  the  morning  the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers 
returned  to  his  home  for  a  warmer  overcoat,  and 
met  the  petrifying  version  of  his  wife.  His 
first  thought  was  of  its  bearing  on  the  election. 

"  True  or  untrue,  Eliza,"  he  declared,  energeti- 
cally, "  this  servant's  chatter  must  go  no  farther." 

"  But  if  he's  a  bad  man  — "  began  Mrs. 
Bowers,  uneasily. 

"  I'm  not  concerned  with  his  morals ;  it's  the 


THE    HENCHMAN  247 

party  I'm  thinking  of.  Not  one  soul  must  you 
tell  —  understand  that  clearly  —  not  one  soul." 

"I  —  I  did  tell  one — just  one." 

"  In  God's  name,  who  ?  "  cried  her  husband. 

"  Don't  swear,  Seneca.  And  you  a  church 
member." 

"Who?    Who?" 

"Mrs.  W  —  W  — "  It  was  impossible  to 
articulate  that  tongue- worry  ing  name  with  her 
lord  glaring  at  her  so  dreadfully. 

The  man  blenched. 

"  Not  old  Weatherwax  !  " 

"  Y-yes." 

Bowers's  jaw  hung  flaccid.  This  phenomenon 
continuing,  Mrs.  Bowers  took  alarm. 

"You've  not  gone  and  had  a  stroke,  have 
you  ?  "  she  wavered  timidly,  feeling  for  his  pulse. 

Bowers  revived  with  a  grunt,  and  bolted  for 
the  door.  His  buggy  wheel  protested  stridently 
as  he  cramped  the  vehicle  at  the  horse-block, 
reassuring  Mrs.  Bowers  that  his  natural  force 
was  not  abated ;  and  his  flight  down  town  af- 
fronted the  ordinance  against  reckless  driving 
which  he  himself  had  framed. 

Shelby,  unnaturally  pale,  but  composed,  was 
issuing  from  his  office  staircase,  and  joined  him 
directly  at  the  curb. 


248  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Jump  in,"  said  Bowers,  making  room. 

"  No  time  now." 

"But  this  is  important  —  critical,  in  fact." 
Observing  no  sign  of  compliance,  Bowers  lowered 
head  and  voice,  murmuring,  "You  know  I'm  no 
hand  at  carrying  tales,  Ross,  but  — " 

"  You  won't  have  to,"  cut  in  Shelby.  "  I 
know." 

"  You  know  ?  " 

"Baffled  sleuth  —  discovery  by  husband  — 
shots  —  kicked  down  steps  —  divorce  case  sum- 
mons in  the  morning  —  you  see  the  whole 
roorback  has  come  my  way." 

"  Roorback  ! "  Bowers  caught  at  the  straw. 
"We  can  make  a  sweeping  denial,  then?" 

"  Whole  hog  or  none."  He  smiled  sarcasti- 
cally into  the  face  which  had  so  suddenly  gone 
bright.  "  The  truth  has  been  so  far  outstripped 
that  you  can't  see  it  with  a  telescope.  Get  hand- 
bills printed  denying  the  story,  denounce  it  as 
a  partisan  trick,  and  sign  the  statement  yourself 
as  chairman  of  the  County  Committee.  Have 
them  distributed  all  over  town,  and  station  men 
—  men,  mind  you,  not  boys  —  with  a  supply 
just  outside  electioneering  limits  at  each  polling 
place.  If  the  yarn  spreads  elsewhere  in  the  dis- 
trict, wire  our  people  to  take  similar  measures." 


THE    HENCHMAN  249 

"  Ross  !  "  Bowers  called  him  back.  "  I  don't 
need  to  tell  you  how  glad  I  am.  I  never  be- 
lieved it  of  you." 

"  Thanks  for  the  vote  of  confidence,"  laughed 
Shelby  ;  "  but  I'd  rather  you'd  hurry  the  hand- 
bills." 

He  had  a  more  urgent  reason  yet,  for  wishing 
Bowers  to  take  himself  off.  A  block  or  two 
up  the  street,  where  the  trees  began  to  interlace 
their  denuded  branches  and  the  court-house 
common  sparkled  with  frosty  rime,  he  had  seen 
the  Widow  Weatherwax  accost  Ruth  Temple. 
The  girl  had  stopped  when  addressed,  but  al- 
most immediately  walked  on,  as  if  to  escape  the 
little  busybody  who,  nothing  daunted,  trotted 
at  elbow  for  a  rod  or  more.  Then  Ruth  came 
down  the  slope  alone,  and  was  intercepted  by 
Shelby  at  her  gate. 

"  I  must  speak  with  you,"  he  said  abruptly. 
"  My  good  name  is  being  dragged  in  the  dirt, 
and  I  must  assure  you  —  " 

"  No,  no,"  Ruth  interposed. 

"  I  tell  you  I  must.  You  have  heard  this 
calumny.  I  saw  her  stop  you  —  the  woman  who 
is  peddling  it  from  door  to  door.  I  must  speak 
—  it's  no  time  for  mincing  words  —  speak  to 
you  personally  —  Bowers  will  answer  to  my 


250  THE    HENCHMAN 

constituency  —  speak  to  you  personally,  I  say, 
appeal  to  you  to  believe  in  me.  You  don't 
know  what  your  belief  in  me  has  been  —  my 
inspiration,  my  safeguard.  Don't  take  it  away  — 
it's  vital ;  don't  deprive  me  of  all  this  on  hearsay. 
Say  you'll  not.  Give  me  a  sign  —  " 

"  Go  win  in  spite  of  it."  In  a  single  wave 
of  generous  impulse  she  had  spoken,  put  out 
her  hand,  and  slipped  past  him,  flushing,  through 
the  gate. 

"  I  can't  fail  now,"  he  exulted,  detaining  her 
an  instant.  "  And  victory  means  so  much.  It 
means  —  listen  :-I'll  tell  you  a  thing  I've  breathed 
to  no  one  else  ;  success  to-day  means  the  governor- 
ship two  years  hence !  It's  been  fairly  promised 
me  —  the  governorship  !  That's  the  great  stake 
—  part  of  it,  rather;  you're  the  rest;  you  who 
believe  in  me  and  bid  me  win.  I've  not  changed 
my  mind  since  the  day  we  rode  together.  I 
told  you  to  think  over  what  I  said,  and  I've 
given  you  time.  I  meant  then  to  come  to  you 
on  the  night  of  my  election — a  victor  —  and 
so  I  shall.  I  couldn't  know  that  I  should  have 
the  executive  mansion  to  offer  you,  but  it's 
none  too  good.  I'll  come  !  I'll  come  !  " 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THERE  was  more  solid  ground  than  mere  con- 
fidence in  his  destiny  behind  Shelby's  bold  front. 
The  earliest  mail  delivery  had  shed  a  glimmer 
of  hope  in  the  shape  of  a  midnight  note  from 
Mrs.  Hilliard.  He  did  not  require  her  reminder 
that  the  voting  strength  of  Little  Poland  was 
no  longer  to  be  counted  in  his  column  —  he  had 
thought  and  fought  that  out  in  the  small  hours ; 
but  he  did  need  and  pounced  upon  the  statement 
that  Little  Poland's  master  would  be  out  of  town 
the  greater  part  of  election  day.  The  scrawl 
ended  with  an  appointment  for  a  clandestine 
meeting  at  eleven  o'clock,  toward  which  he  now 
bent  his  steps  on  leaving  Ruth. 

Mrs.  Hilliard  had  named  a  cemetery  on  the 
immediate  outskirts  as  the  rendezvous  —  a  choice 
on  whose  evil  omen  Shelby  wasted  no  thought. 
In  the  heyday  of  their  flirtation  he  and  Mrs. 
Hilliard  had  made  frequent  use  of  it  as  a  Plat- 
onic trysting-place,  and  he  climbed  the  silent  paths 
toward  the  summit  of  the  mount,  as  it  was  styled 

251 


252 


THE    HENCHMAN 


in  that  level  land,  with  no  sentiment  save  ap- 
proval of  her  wisdom  in  seizing  upon  the  one 
spot  in  all  New  Babylon  whose  privacy  was 
certain. 

Mrs.  Milliard,  shivering  in  the  lee  of  a  preten- 
tious granite  shaft  which  bore  her  family  name, 
was  more  susceptible. 

"Bleak  —  desolate,"  she  chattered.  "What 
an  end  for  our  Fools'  Paradise.  But  where  else 
could  we  escape  their  prying  eyes  ?  " 

"  You've  heard  what  they're  saying  ?  " 

She  nodded  listlessly. 

"  Who  has  not  heard  ?  "  As  they  huddled  in 
the  shelter  of  the  monument  she  brooded  over 
the  plain  below  wherein  the  canal,  livid,  yet  un- 
frozen still,  half  girdled  the  town  in  a  serpentine 
fold.  Each  chimney  curled  a  light  spiral  into 
the  nipping  air.  "  Under  every  one  a  wagging 
tongue,"  she  said.  "  It's  known  to  every  soul 
except  one." 

"  You  mean  he's  still  in  the  dark  ?  " 

"  He  can't  know  yet.  He  took  an  early  train 
to  Centreport.  It's  some  quarry  business  that 
could  not  wait.  I  remembered  it  last  night  — 
after  —  after  you  had  gone;  so  I  wrote.  It  was 
past  two  o'clock  before  I  dared  steal  out  to  post 
the  letter." 


THE   HENCHMAN  253 

Shelby  shrugged  into  the  collar  of  his  ulster. 

"  I  don't  deserve  all  this,"  he  muttered. 

"  Don't  say  that.  You've  done  things,  too. 
You've  stood  for  —  things;  something  to  pin 
faith  to.  You  are  — " 

"  I'm  your  good  friend  —  remember  that." 

"  Friend  !  " 

He  drew  her  farther  into  shelter,  and  tucked 
her  furs  about  her  throat. 

"  Now  concentrate  your  mind,"  he  enjoined, 
"  and  tell  me  exactly  the  lay  of  the  land.  Did 
he  communicate  with  the  foreman  at  the  quarry 
before  he  left  ?  " 

"Yes.  I  overheard  him  telephone  Kiska  be- 
fore breakfast.  He  said  he'd  return  at  half-past 
three.  There's  no  train  to-day  from  Centreport 
till  then." 

"  And  there  is  no  other  till  the  polls  close. 
He  said  nothing,  then,  about  voting  the  hands 
before  afternoon  ? " 

"  They're  at  work  this  morning." 

"  On  election  day  !     You're  sure  ?  " 

"  They're  working  half  a  day  on  full  day's  pay. 
Joe's  hurrying  some  contract  through.  I  don't 
understand  it  very  well,  but  the  stone  has  to  be 
shipped  before  the  canal  freezes  on  account  of — 
something  —  freight  rates  —  " 


254  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Never  mind  that.  What  did  he  say  to  Kiska 
about  voting  —  that  the  men  should  be  ready  at 
such  and  such  a  time  ? " 

"  No,  no;  I  know  about  that.  Before  anything 
happened  it  was  arranged  that  the  men  should 
vote  about  four  o'clock.  He  merely  told  Kiska 
he'd  return  at  three-thirty." 

"  Good,  good  !  "  exclaimed  Shelby,  making 
ready  for  action.  "  Every  naturalized  mother's 
son  in  Little  Poland  shall  vote  for  me  before 
the  train  can  even  whistle.  Now,  you  go  home, 
Cora,"  he  charged,  "  and  drink  something  hot 
against  this  graveyard  chill.  Keep  a  stiff  upper 
lip  —  that's  my  creed.  Everything  blows  over 
in  time.  The  scandal  is  so  tall  that  it  will  topple 
of  itself.  Nobody  will  believe  it  after  election." 

"  But  Joe  ?  Think  of  him  when  he  learns 
what  they're  saying,  and  that  you've  outwitted 
him." 

Shelby  grinned. 

"  That's  the  situation's  one  humorous  phase," 
said  he.  "  The  two  things  will  neutralize  one 
another's  effect,  —  like  Kilkenny  cats,  you  know. 
He'll  not  dare  raise  a  row  about  the  votes  for 
fear  of  lending  color  to  the  scandal." 

But  Mrs.  Hilliard,  whose  sense  of  humor  was 
sluggish  this  morning,  rejoined  bitterly  :  — 


THE    HENCHMAN  255 

"  The  row  will  fall  to  me." 

"He   needn't   know  your   part   in    this  —  the 
matter  of  the  votes;  and  as  for  the  other  thing  — 
well,  after  all,  he  is  your  husband,  hard  and  fast, 
and  you'd  best  try  and  patch  things  up." 

She  straightened,  flashing  him  a  stony  look, 
and  he  braced  himself  for  a  hurricane ;  but  to  his 
equal  discomfiture  she  went  down  beside  the  shaft 
in  a  passionate  fit  of  weeping. 

"  I  should  be  under  here,"  she  sobbed ;  "  I 
should  be  under  here." 

Shelby,  tingling  to  be  gone,  shifted  from  foot 
to  foot,  and  offered  some  blundering  solace  which 
she  put  away. 

"  You've  ceased  to  care,"  she  accused. 

He  protested,  adding  indiscreetly  that  she  had 
done  too  much  for  him  for  that. 

"You've  filled  the  place  he  should  have  filled!" 

Shelby  was  silent,  goaded  to  torture  by  the 
lapse  of  precious  minutes. 

"  There's  only  blackness  ahead  !  " 

"  Don't  take  the  dark  view,"  entreated  Shelby, 
groping  desperately  for  a  bright  one.  "  The  man 
can't  live  always  —  so  much  older  than  you  —  and 
then  —  your  life's  your  own  —  " 

The  bowed  figure  shuddered. 

"It's    a    dreadful    thing    to    do  —  but    I've 


256  THE   HENCHMAN 

thought  that,  too.  I  can't  help  it.  You  — 
you  are  the  real  one  —  the  real  one  — "  She 
waited. 

"  Yes."     It  was  screwed  from  him. 

"The  real  one  —  and  if — I  know  I  don't 
need  your  promise  —  but  if —  " 

"  Yes,  yes  ;  of  course  if —  " 

Neither  of  them  would  name  the  contingency. 

Shelby  contrived  a  leave-taking,  and  bounded 
down  the  terraced  slopes.  It  was  quite  noon 
when  he  reached  the  Tuscarora  House,  but  with- 
out a  thought  of  food,  he  got  his  horse  and  buggy 
from  the  livery,  "speeding  the  harnessing  with  his 
own  hands,  and  whipped  away  for  Little  Poland. 

On  reaching  the  Hilliard  quarries  he  con- 
fronted unexpected  obstacles.  The  men  had 
quitted  work  and  scattered  to  their  homes,  and 
Kiska  was  to  be  discovered  neither  in  nor  around 
the  little  office.  However,  the  Polish  lad  in 
temporary  charge,  Kiska's  own  son,  was  not  slow 
to  recognize  the  original  of  the  campaign  litho- 
graph which  in  his  home  enjoyed  honors  second 
only  to  a  highly-colored  Madonna,  and  went  fly- 
ing in  search  of  his  father.  Shelby  took  instant 
advantage  of  his  absence  to  telephone  Bowers, 
whom  he  luckily  located  at  his  midday  meal.  He 
learned  that  the  handbills  had  been  sown  broad- 


THE    HENCHMAN 


257 


cast  with  encouraging  effect,  and  that  the  general 
opinion  of  the  voting  public  leaned  toward  unbe- 
lief. Shelby  told  his  whereabouts,  and  requested 
the  prompt  services  of  Jasper  Hinchey  and  three 
or  four  kindred  spirits,  ringing  off  after  certain 
mysterious,  though  concise,  directions  regarding 
a  concert  hall  in  the  Flats,  which  he  meant 
shortly  to  utilize. 

He  had  barely  hung  up  the  receiver  when  a 
telegraph  messenger  from  town  brought  a  de- 
spatch for  Kiska.  Shelby's  breath  shortened  at 
sight  of  the  yellow  envelope,  but  he  mustered  a 
specious  unconcern,  telling  the  boy  that  the  fore- 
man's return,  though  certain,  was  not  within 
immediate  prospect,  and  volunteered  to  receipt 
for  the  message  himself — an  offer  readily  em- 
braced by  the  lad,  who,  without  a  glance,  pock- 
eted the  book  in  which  Shelby  scrawled  Kiska's 
own  name,  and  fared  away  with  a  head  aflame 
from  the  bonfires  of  the  coming  night. 

The  envelope  was  loosely  gummed,  and  gave 
under  gentle  persuasion.  Shelby  threw  a  glance 
from  either  window  of  the  narrow  room,  and 
drew  the  paper  from  its  cover.  It  was  from 
Hilliard  at  Centreport,  and  announced  that  he 
had  missed  his  train.  The  reader's  delight  was 
qualified  by  the  succeeding  statement  that  he 


258  THE   HENCHMAN 

should  come  by  the  canal,  and  that  the  men  were 
to  be  in  readiness. 

"  He's  hired  a  launch  or  tug,"  commented 
Shelby.  "  Horses  aren't  to  be  had  to-day  for 
rubies  or  fine  gold." 

He  replaced  the  message,  sealed  the  envelope, 
and  flung  it  on  the  table,  catching  sight  of  Kiska, 
as  he  did  so,  striding  along  the  canal  bank  toward 
the  office.  The  big  Pole  burst  into  the  room  a 
moment  later,  his  simple  face  aglow  at  the  meet- 
ing, and  sputtered  broken  excuses  for  keeping  his 
preserver  waiting.  Shelby  shook  both  his  grimy 
hands,  and  smilingly  supposed  that  Kiska  had 
made  up  his  mind  how  he  should  vote.  Kiska's 
English  was  uncertain,  but  there  was  no  misread- 
ing his  gesticulation. 

"  And  Little  Poland  ? "  insinuated  the  candi- 
date, blandly. 

"  Leetle  Poland  ees  ein  beeg  vote,"  Kiska 
eagerly  assured  him ;  "  joost  ein  beeg  vote  for 
Meester  Shelby.  Whan  you  save  me,  Meester 
Heelyard  he  say  eef  anybody  no  want  to  vote  for 
you,  he  can  joost  valk  aus  de  qvarry." 

"  Very  kind  of  him,"  said  Shelby.  "  Now, 
since  you  all  know  your  own  minds,  I'd  take  it 
as  a  favor  if  you  would  get  to  the  polls  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment.  The  voting  promises 


THE    HENCHMAN  259 

to  be  heavy  toward  the  close,  and  I  don't  care  to 
have  my  friends  inconvenienced.  By  the  way, 
Kiska,"  he  broke  off  carelessly  "there's  a  tele- 
gram for  you  over  there.  It  came  not  ten 
minutes  ago." 

By  dint  of  facial  contortion  Kiska  puzzled  out 
the  meaning,  and  handed  the  message  to  Shelby, 
who  gave  it  grave  perusal. 

"  Ah,"  said  he.  "  You  see  he's  anxious  about 
it,  too.  If  there  was  any  way  of  reaching  him 
by  wire,  we  could  relieve  his  mind ;  as  there  is 
not,  the  wise  course  is  to  go  ahead.  His  coming 
by  boat  is  uncertain.  It  will  be  a  nice  little  sur- 
prise for  him  to  find  that  you've  got  the  votes  all 
in." 

So  it  seemed  to  Kiska,  and  the  business  of 
rallying  Little  Poland  to  its  civic  duties  was 
instantly  got  under  way.  Here,  too,  were  obsta- 
cles. Having  been  told  to  present  themselves  at 
a  later  hour,  the  villagers  were  in  all  states  of 
unreadiness ;  but  by  impressing  this  helper  and 
that,  doing  the  work  of  three  men  himself,  and 
with  the  reenforcement  of  Jap  Hinchey  and  his 
co-workers,  whom  Bowers  hurried  to  the  scene  in 
a  hired  carriage  whose  bravery  of  varnish  made 
mock  of  their  rags,  Kiska  at  last  collected  his 
compatriots.  The  rented  vehicle  was  urged 


260  THE    HENCHMAN 

back  at  a  gallop  to  Bowers  and  continued  pub- 
lic usefulness,  and  the  whole  body  of  enfran- 
chised Poles,  under  the  escort  of  Kiska,  Jap 
Hinchey,  and  his  fellows,  trudged  off  in  groups 
of  five  and  ten  to  New  Babylon. 

Little  Poland  lay  within  the  same  voting  pre- 
cinct as  the  Flats,  and  when  Shelby  had  assured 
himself  that  the  straggling  column  was  finally  in 
motion,  he  rode  on  in  advance  toward  this  quar- 
ter and  the  concert  hall  to  which  he  had  made 
mysterious  reference  in  his  telephoned  directions 
to  the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers.  From  the  elevation 
of  a  canal  bridge  he  searched  the  waterway  for  a 
sign  of  Milliard's  coming,  pondering  anxiously 
whether  a  pillar  of  smoke  at  the  horizon's  rim 
were  his  herald ;  but  a  glance  at  his  watch  re- 
assured. The  train  which  Milliard  had  missed 
was  barely  due,  and  to  cover  the  distance  by  boat 
meant  an  additional  hour  at  least.  Employing  a 
street  urchin  to  lead  his  horse  to  its  stable,  he 
struck  out  on  foot  for  the  Flats. 

At  the  tawdry  concert  hall  everything  was  as  it 
should  be,  and  in  the  brief  interval  before  the 
arrival  of  the  Poles  he  received  inspiriting  news 
from  one  of  his  workers.  Money  was  flowing, 
buckets  of  it,  but  beyond  doubt  they  held  the 
longer  purse.  Their  policy  of  offering  high 


THE    HENCHMAN  261 

prices  to  the  floaters  at  the  outset  had  drained 
the  disciples  of  the  late  Chuck  O'Rourke  before 
twelve  o'clock,  and  patriots  were  now  to  be  had 
at  bargain  rates.  Some  few  conscientious  souls 
who  could  not  see  their  way  to  a  Shelby  vote  had 
been  induced  to  stay  away  from  the  polls  alto- 
gether; and  at  least  a  dozen  irreconcilables  had 
been  laid  by  the  heels  with  bad  whiskey  before 
they  had  done  protesting  that  not  all  the  powers 
of  darkness  could  deter  them  from  casting  an 
unsullied  ballot  under  the  emblem  of  the  Square. 

The  Poles  came  hulking  in,  Shelby  himself 
keeping  tally  at  the  door,  and  when  Kiska  had 
urged  the  last  loiterer  over  the  threshold,  the  key 
was  turned.  Drinks  were  sparingly  circulated, 
and  Kiska  harangued  the  crowd  briefly  in  Polish, 
hammering  in  Shelby's  instructions  for  their  con- 
duct in  the  voting  booths,  and  impressing  them 
with  the  fact  that  good  cheer  in  plenty  would 
await  them  here  on  their  return.  Under  the 
efficient  supervision  of  Jasper  Hinchey  and  his 
lieutenants  they  were  now  guided  to  the  polling- 
place  in  squads  of  three  or  four,  returning  pres- 
ently to  unlimited  refreshment  and  a  surreptitious 
two-dollar  bill  —  shining  examples  and  incentives 
to  such  as  had  not  yet  voted  to  speed  their  going. 

Yet  with   all   their  willingness,  the  affair   con- 


262  THE    HENCHMAN 

sumed  time,  and  twice  Shelby  went  into  the  dusty 
wings  of  the  stage  to  a  window  overlooking  the 
canal,  and  strained  to  detect  the  panting  of  a 
laboring  launch  or  tug.  But  the  last  quarryman 
voted,  the  polls  closed,  darkness  fell,  and  Joe 
Milliard  was  not  yet  come. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

A  PLEASANT  local  custom  fell  this  night  into 
abeyance.  Years  out  of  mind  the  adherents  of 
the  leading  political  parties  had  mingled  sociably 
before  a  non-partisan  bulletin  board  in  the  court- 
house, much  as  hostile  camps  fraternize  in  the 
truce  forerunning  peace.  But  the  old,  simpler 
order  of  things  had  suffered  more  wrenches  than 
one  in  this  acrid  congressional  campaign,  and  the 
warring  factions  could  unite  only  on  the  hibernian 
proposition  that  union  was  impossible.  One 
party,  therefore,  made  ready  to  gather  in  the 
accustomed  place,  the  other  in  the  Grand  Opera 
House,  while  seceding  remnants  from  both  swelled 
the  crowd  in  the  street  before  the  office  of  the 
Whig,  which,  with  unlooked-for  enterprise,  had 
prepared  to  announce  the  returns  by  stereopticon. 

At  six  o'clock  Shelby  broke  his  fast  with  a 
ravenous  meal  at  the  hotel,  which  Bowers  shared, 
and  three-quarters  of  an  hour  later  the  two  men 
shouldered  through  the  boisterous  mob  in  the 
streets  to  Shelby's  law  office,  where  arrangements 

263 


264  THE   HENCHMAN 

had  been  perfected  to  receive  the  returns  by  mes- 
senger and  private  wire.  The  Whig  bulletin 
over  the  way  had  already  massed  a  constituency 
extending  to  the  Temple  lawn,  which,  in  default 
of  definite  news,  it  was  edifying  with  views  of 
foreign  travel  and  cartoons  bearing  on  the  larger 
issues  of  the  election.  Within  doors  the  tele- 
graph operator  was  already  installed  at  the  ancient 
table  which  had  graced  the  grand-paternal  distil- 
lery, and  William  Irons  was  making  good  the 
tedium  of  a  dreary  day  in  the  deserted  office  by 
goggling  from  the  ticking  instrument  to  a  con- 
signment of  iced  champagne  just  arrived  from  the 
Tuscarora  House. 

Shelby  was  in  rare  fettle. 

"  William,  thou  abstemious  youth,"  he  ad- 
dressed the  clerk,  "  I  am  tempted  to  empty  one 
of  these  cold  bottles  down  your  scandalized  neck 
and  pack  you  off  with  another  for  the  Widow 
Weatherwax !  " 

He  had  the  youth  carry  the  wine  to  the  rear 
room  and  set  out  glasses  against  the  coming  of 
his  friends,  drinking  a  bumper  meanwhile  to  Will- 
iam's good  health  and  the  sentiment  Confusion 
to  Fusion.  Never  a  solitary  winebibber,  and 
William  remaining  recalcitrant,  he  returned  to 
the  outer  office  and  demanded  "  no  heeltaps  "  of 


THE    HENCHMAN  265 

the  operator  and  Bowers.  This  accomplished 
to  his  taste,  he  crammed  a  greenback  into  the 
dazed  clerk's  fingers  and  dismissed  him  for  the 
night  with  the  injunction  to  buy  and  blow 
the  biggest  tin  horn  in  New  Babylon. 

His  intimates  now  began  to  drift  in,  and  the 
toast  of  Confusion  to  Fusion  enjoyed  a  wide 
popularity,  the  telegraph  operator  and  the  county 
chairman  being  the  only  ones  permitted  to  flag 
in  the  exacting  ceremonies  which  the  occasion 
required. 

"  I'll  do  my  hurrahing  when  the  returns  are 
in,"  said  Bowers,  and  stripping  to  his  shirt  sleeves 
he  took  his  station  under  a  drop-light  and  made 
ready  to  figure  the  local  result. 

But  the  local  returns  were  tardy.  It  developed 
early  that  throughout  the  Demijohn  split  tickets 
had  prevailed  to  an  unprecedented  extent.  Here- 
tofore reliable  localities  ran  after  strange  socialistic 
and  prohibition  gods,  to  avoid  voting  for  either 
of  the  leading  candidates ;  while  Graves  and 
Shelby  both  gained  support  in  quarters  where 
it  would  have  been  sheer  fatuity  to  hope.  The 
hurrying  news  from  the  country  at  large  shamed 
the  dribble  at  the  threshold.  Texas  and  Ver- 
mont, those  stock  commonplaces  of  election 
night  humor,  went  Democratic  and  Republican 


266  THE    HENCHMAN 

by  the  usual  majorities,  and  all  signs  pointed  to 
a  sweeping  victory  for  Shelby's  party  in  state 
and  Union.  And  still  Tuscarora  and  the  Demi- 
john aped  the  Sphinx. 

Men  elsewhere  became  curious.  Bowers  re- 
ceived and  passed  silently  to  Shelby  demands  for 
a  forecast  from  other  county  chairmen  in  the  dis- 
trict ;  from  leaders  prominent  in  the  state ;  from 
great  metropolitan  newspapers  which  were  tabu- 
lating the  congressional  elections  of  the  nation 
and  studying  the  complexion  of  the  future 
House. 

"  Claim  the  district,  of  course,"  directed  Shelby. 
"  Say  we're  deliberate,  but  true  blue." 

The  drumming  humble-bee  voice  of  the  crowd 
below  the  windows  watching  Volney  Sprague's 
bulletin  suddenly  lifted  in  a  lion  roar.  Elation 
in  that  quarter  was  ominous,  and  Shelby  drew  a 
curtain.  It  appeared  that  a  minor  revolt  against 
the  Boss  in  New  York  City,  with  which  the  Tus- 
carora independents  had  felt  themselves  pecul- 
iarly in  sympathy,  had  made  good  its  claim  for 
recognition.  Shelby  turned  from  the  window 
with  a  laugh. 

"  Merely  a  little  extra  diplomacy  for  Old 
Silky,"  he  said.  "  Within  a  twelvemonth  each 
reformer  will  have  a  foreign  mission." 


THE    HENCHMAN  267 

A  tactless  friend  embraced  the  occasion  to 
wonder  where  the  Boss  would  banish  Bernard 
Graves  should  he  chance  to  win ;  but  even  idle 
speculation  on  such  a  possibility  was  so  distasteful 
to  the  company  that  the  blunderer  only  retrieved 
his  mistake  by  toasting  Confusion  to  Fusion 
anew. 

The  returns  from  the  laggard  Demijohn  pres- 
ently thickened,  and  Shelby  left  his  seat  to  pace 
the  floor,  while  Bowers,  with  an  unlighted  cigar 
between  his  teeth,  and  looking  very  like  Grant 
indeed,  figured,  discarded,  and  figured  again  as 
successive  reports  modified  his  calculations. 

"  Never  saw  it's  equal  —  never  !  "  he  grunted. 
"  Here's  our  own  town  hanging  fire  till  almost 
the  last  like  some  jay  village  in  the  Adirondacks. 
We've  always  prided  ourselves  on  being  prompt." 
He  caught  a  flying  sheet  from  the  operator  and 
groaned :  "  We  are  the  last !  By  the  Great 
Horn  Spoon  ! "  For  Shelby's  ear  alone  he  mut- 
tered :  "  The  last,  Ross ;  New  Babylon's  the  last, 
and  the  die  by  which  you  lose  or  win.  Figure  it 
yourself." 

Shelby  ran  through  his  senior's  calculations  and 
nodded  without  speech.  No  one  spoke  now. 
Not  a  wine-glass  tinkled.  The  room  sensed  a 
crisis.  By  telephone,  special  messenger,  and  the 


268  THE    HENCHMAN 

instrument  at  the  table  the  belated  story  of 
New  Babylon's  vote  pieced  itself  together  under 
Bowers's  pencil.  The  candidate  hovered  above 
him,  intent  on  every  stroke. 

"  Good  God  !  "  he  whispered  suddenly  ;  "  it 
hangs  on  the  Flats  ! " 

"  Yes  ;  it's  the  last  precinct.  They  sent  word 
that  the  thick-skulled  Poles  and  the  rest  had 
made  an  awful  mess  of  the  ballots.  Tom"  —  to 
one  of  the  onlookers  —  "  'phone  the  Flats  again." 

But  on  the  instant  the  Flats  embodied  itself  in 
the  doorway  in  the  person  of  a  breathless  messen- 
ger. Bowers's  *  trembling  fingers  fumbled  the 
paper  and  cast  it  fluttering  toward  the  floor,  but 
Shelby  fastened  on  it  in  mid-air,  read  it,  crumpled 
it,  mechanically  made  it  smooth  again,  and  laid  it 
gently  on  his  desk.  There  came  a  second  roar 
from  the  street,  a  medley  of  cheers,  groans,  hisses, 
and  the  blare  of  horns.  Shelby  again  drew  a  cur- 
tain. On  the  Whig  s  screen  was  displayed  a  huge 
rooster  with  the  legend  :  IT'S  GRAVES  ! 

Shelby  caught  a  murmuring  from  the  group 
behind  him  :  vapid  expressions  of  regret,  scorch- 
ing condolence,  pitying  oaths ;  then  the  voice  of 
a  newcomer,  a  newspaper  correspondent,  asking 
Bowers  if  they  conceded  their  defeat. 

He  spun  about,  crying, — 


THE    HENCHMAN  269 

"  We  concede  nothing." 

The  reporter  said  that  the  returns  as  received 
indicated  a  slight  majority  for  the  fusion  candi- 
date. 

"We  dispute  the  returns." 

"  But,  Ross,  —  "  Bowers  put  in. 

"  We  dispute  the  returns.  Should  the  official 
count  be  adverse,  we  shall  dispute  that.  In  view 
of  the  methods  employed  by  the  allies  of  the  in- 
dependents, it  becomes  nothing  less  than  a  public 
duty  to  carry  the  contest  to  the  floor  of  the 
House  of  Representatives." 

"  It  will  be  a  House  of  your  political  friends," 
remarked  the  correspondent,  impersonally.  "  Shall 
I  then  quote  you  as  claiming  your  election  ?  " 

"  Most  emphatically,  yes.  Quote  me  as  confi- 
dent of  a  verdict  approving  my  public  course  and 
rebuking  the  slanderous  attack  on  my  private 
character." 

"  What's  the  use  ?  "  protested  Bowers,  as  the 
reporter  hurried  off  in  quest  of  Bernard  Graves. 
"It's  too  late  to  bluff." 

"Use,"  echoed  Shelby.  "I  tell  you,  man, 
there's  a  blunder  in  the  returns.  Look,  man, 
look ! "  snatching  up  the  report  from  the  Flats. 
"  Isn't  that  arrant  nonsense  on  the  face  of  it  ? 
The  Flats,  mind  you  ;  our  own  little  pocket  bor- 


270  THE   HENCHMAN 

ough  of  the  Flats  !  Don't  talk  to  me  about  the 
Poles  muddling  things  ;  those  inspectors  of  elec- 
tio.n  can  give  them  cards  for  stupidity  and  take 
every  trick.  Let  me  'phone  the  Flats." 

And  he  was  right.  The  inspectors  of  the 
belated  precinct,  conscious  of  unwonted  delay, 
nervous  from  long  weighing  of  defective  ballots, 
harassed  by  incessant  demands  for  their  report, 
had  capped  the  climax  of  their  offending  by  an- 
nouncing the  result  as  favorable  to  Graves.  The 
mistake  was  discovered  and  rectified  within  fifteen 
minutes  of  its  commission.  Shelby  had  carried 
the  precinct,  and  with  it  the  election  by  something 
less  than  two  hundred  votes. 

Giddy  with  the  reaction,  the  Hon.  Seneca 
Bowers  gulped  glass  after  glass  of  champagne, 
toasting  Confusion  to  Fusion  like  the  veriest 
roisterer. 

"And  we  abused  the  Poles,"  he  said  in  self- 
reproach.  "  Ross,  it  was  the  Poles  who  saved  the 
day." 

Shelby  was  the  one  self-contained  being  in  the 
room. 

"  Yes,"  he  answered  soberly,  "it  was  the  Poles." 

With  stern  straightforwardness  the  Whig  bul- 
letin over  the  way  had  promptly  set  forth  the 
corrected  result,  and  the  crowd,  now  swollen  by 


THE    HENCHMAN  271 

more  deserters  from  the  tame  gatherings  in  the 
little  theatre  and  the  court-house,  was  clamoring 
for  a  sight  of  the  victor  whom  everybody  knew 
was  within  hearing.  Shelby's  jubilant  companions 
were  puzzled  at  his  reluctance  to  comply  with  the 
popular  demand.  He  declined  to  show  himself, 
however,  till  the  arrival  of  a  serenading  brass  band 
compelled  an  acknowledgment,  when  he  stepped 
from  a  window  to  a  little  balcony  and  spoke  a 
few  grave  words :  he  had  never  doubted  their 
support,  they  had  repaid  his  trust,  he  was  grate- 
ful ;  as  he  had  championed  their  lesser  interests 
in  the  smaller  field,  so  should  he  strive  to  further 
their  greater  concerns  in  the  national  lists  to  which 
he  was  to  pass  their  chosen  knight. 

Within  the  law  office  preparations  were  rife  for 
adjourning  to  the  Tuscarora  House  as  a  less  re- 
stricted arena  for  the  celebration  which  the  fitness 
of  things  demanded.  Shelby  begged  them  to  go 
before  him,  promising  to  follow. 

"  I  need  a  few  minutes  to  myself,  boys,"  he 
said.  "  It's  been  a  strain,  you  know." 

They  caroused  away,  Bowers  the  most  jocund 
bacchanal  of  all ;  the  operator  boxed  over  his 
instrument  against  harm  and  slipped  out;  and 
Shelby  was  left  solitary  with  the  litter  and  the 
lees.  One  by  one  he  extinguished  the  lights,  and 


272  THE    HENCHMAN 

in  darkness,  at  length,  halted  at  the  window  from 
which  he  had  so  often  marked  the  goings  and 
comings  of  Ruth  Temple.  The  old  house  was 
brilliantly  alight  in  its  lower  rooms ;  lit,  he  dared 
hope,  in  honor  of  his  triumph  and  his  anticipated 
return.  He  turned  and  left  his  office  with  elastic 
step. 

Fumbling  with  the  lock  in  the  dim  light  of  the 
hall,  he  was  spied  from  below  by  a  newsboy  who 
came  bounding  up  the  stairs. 

"  Extry !  Extry  'dition  of  th'  Whig,  Mr. 
Shelby,"  he  called.  "  Read  all  about  yer  'lection 
an'  th'  drowndin'  accident !  " 

"  Drowning  accident !  "  Shelby  started  and 
seized  a  paper.  "  Who  is  drowned  ?  " 

The  lad  did  not  know.  He  had  not  read 
beyond  the  headline  which  seemed  to  promise 
salability.  But  in  the  obscurity  of  the  landing 
Shelby  came  upon  the  particulars  swiftly  enough. 
Skimming  the  brief  despatch,  here  a  sentence, 
there  a  sentence  seared  itself  into  his  memory. 

"Missed  his  train  at  Centreport  —  conscientious  citizen, 
valuing  his  vote  —  hired  a  naphtha  launch  —  collision  —  ham- 
pered by  clothing  —  leaves  a  sorrowing  widow —  " 

"Th'  extry  'dition  is  two  cents,"  reminded 
the  urchin. 


BOOK    III 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  executive  mansion  was  strewn  with  the 
wreckage  of  the  inaugural  reception.  A  musky 
odor  blent  of  plant  life  and  massed  humanity 
hung  thickly  throughout  the  spacious  rooms 
and  corridors ;  the  bower  of  palms  and  flowery 
brightness  at  the  foot  of  the  great  staircase,  which 
had  fended  the  orchestra,  and  incidentally  barred 
an  intrusive  if  sovereign  people  from  the  private 
apartments,  was  jostled  and  awry,  its  blossoms 
half  despoiled ;  here  lay  a  trampled  glove,  there 
a  shining  shred  of  braid,  beyond  an  embarrassed 
cigar  stump  —  dumb  emblems  of  social  Albany, 
gold-laced  officialdom,  and  the  unaristocratic  un- 
official ruck,  whose  mingled  tide  had  beat  upon 
the  new  governor's  threshold  in  the  late  hours 
of  the  afternoon.  A  clock  somewhere  about 
the  scene  of  devastation  chimed  midnight,  and 
a  man  with  attractive  black  eyes,  who  had  been 
monopolizing  his  hostess  upward  of  two  hours, 
outstaying  all  other  guests  save  one,  now  took 
his  belated  leave. 

275 


276  THE   HENCHMAN 

"Yes;  I  prophesy  a  brilliant  season,  Mrs. 
Shelby,"  he  said.  "With  a  woman  of  your 
talents  in  this  house,  Albany  must  at  last 
awake." 

Cora  Shelby  returned  to  one  of  the  smaller 
reception  rooms,  where  an  open  fire  wrought 
changing  shadows  in  the  face  of  the  Hon.  Seneca 
Bowers. 

"  I  think  ex-Senator  Ludlow  is  perfectly 
fascinating,"  she  exclaimed.  "  Have  you  known 
him  long  ?  " 

"  All  of  ten  years,"  returned  Bowers,  with  a 
little  tightening 'of  the  lips.  "  Most  everybody 
in  politics  knows  Handsome  Ludlow." 

"  Ah,  he  is  handsome.  And  so  polished, 
too." 

Bowers  found  the  topic  difficult,  and  changed 
it. 

"  What's  your  opinion  of  Ross's  inaugura- 
tion ?  "  he  asked.  "  I  call  it  an  A-i  success." 

"  It  would  have  been  a  success,"  discriminated 
Cora,  "  a  pronounced  success,  if  Ross  had  ap- 
proached it  with  a  tithe  of  the  spirit  I  urged. 
But  no ;  simplicity,  simplicity !  You  would 
have  thought  the  affair  a  transfer  of  Methodist 
parsons.  No  military  escort  to  the  capitol,  no 
decorations  in  the  Assembly  Chamber  to  speak 


THE    HENCHMAN  277 

of,  no  music,  no  anything  that  the  occasion 
demanded." 

"  Fuss  and  feathers  never  did  appeal  to  Ross," 
said  the  guest.  "  Besides,  I  guess  he  thought 
the  last  administration  had  splurged  enough  for 
two." 

"  Their  fine  plumage  covered  as  slovenly 
housekeeping  as  I  ever  saw,"  interjected  Mrs. 
Shelby,  momentarily  diverted  from  her  husband's 
shortcomings.  "  I  wish  you  might  have  seen 
what  I  have  seen  in  out-of-the-way  corners  of 
this  establishment.  What  the  servants  did  for 
their  wages  I  can't  conceive.  But,  after  all, 
those  people  had  the  right  idea  of  upholding  the 
dignity  of  the  position.  The  ex-governor  didn't 
decline  an  escort  to  the  capitol  when  he  took 
office.  That  puts  me  out  of  patience  with  Ross 
every  time  I  think  of  it.  Then,  to  cap  the 
climax,  he  didn't  even  take  a  carriage ;  he 
walked  ! " 

"  Walked  down  with  me,"  Bowers  chuckled. 
"And,  by  Jove,  nobody  knew  him.  One  of 
the  orderlies  wanted  to  keep  him  out  of  the 
executive  chamber." 

Cora  shuddered,  and  the  old  man  bestirred 
his  wits  to  soothe  her  outraged  sensibilities. 

"You  must  remember  that  he  made  his  run 


278  THE   HENCHMAN 

on  an  economy  platform,"  he  reminded.  "  He 
believed  it,  too,  every  word.  After  all,  you 
can't  say  that  you've  not  had  things  your  own 
way  here  at  the  mansion." 

"  It's  a  mercy  I  did.  He  would  have  had 
the  house  reception  and  the  staff  dinner  equally 
prim  if  I  hadn't  put  my  foot  down.  I  said 
no ;  be  as  puritanic  as  you  please  at  the  capitol, 
but  the  executive  mansion  concerns  me ;  I'm 
governor  here." 

"  Tolerably  big  commonwealth,  too,"  com- 
mented Bowers,  dryly.  "  Somehow  it  puts  me 
in  mind  of  what  I  thought  palaces  were  like 
when  I  was  a  boy." 

"  Oh,  yes ;  it's  well  enough,  though  the  deco- 
rations aren't  to  my  taste ;  but  the  location 
is  very  unfashionable  —  orphan  asylums,  hovels, 
saloons,  and  all  that  under  one's  very  nose." 

"  I  hadn't  noticed  the  saloons." 

"Well,  there's  a  saloon  at  any  rate.  I  saw 
it  to-day  from  one  of  the  south  windows.  The 
state  was  stupidly  short-sighted  to  buy  a  house 
in  this  quarter.  The  executive  mansion  ought 
to  stand  in  Quality  Row." 

"  What's  that  ?  "  asked  Bowers. 

"Not  much  to  look  at — just  a  block  or  two 
of  houses  near  the  capitol,  not  one  of  which 


THE    HENCHMAN  279 

could  have  cost  more  than  my  own  place  in 
New  Babylon,  for  all  that  famous  people  have 
lived  in  them  ;  but  it's  the  cream  of  Albany." 

"  Everything  else  is  skim  milk,  I  suppose  ? " 

Mrs.  Shelby  eluded  the  classification. 

"  Nearly  all  that's  socially  significant  is  grouped 
thereabouts,"  she  pursued ;  "  the  cathedral,  the 
Beverwyck  Club,  Canon  North,  and  Mrs. 
Teunis  Van  Dam.  The  canon  and  Mrs. 
Van  Dam  are  the  keys  to  the  social  citadel,  I 
assure  you.  Probably  you  noticed  them  on  the 
platform  at  the  inauguration.  Then,  she  helped 
me  receive  this  afternoon,  thanks  to  a  bit  of 
diplomacy." 

Bowers  absorbed  these  esoteric  deliverances 
in  meekness. 

"  It  takes  a  woman  to  bottom  such  things," 
he  said  admiringly.  "  I  guess  you'll  pass." 

Cora  herself  harbored  no  doubts,  but  she 
disclaimed  a  single-handed  victory. 

"  I  shouldn't  know  all  these  things  yet  if  it 
were  not  for  the  governor's  military  secretary, 
Colonel  Schuyler  Smith.  Do  you  know  him  ?  " 

"  I'm  not  sure  that  I  can  place  the  colonel," 
ruminated  Bowers.  "Is  he  that  blond  young 
dandy  whose  sword  got  tangled  in  his  legs  ?  " 

"  Yes,  poor  dear  !     He's  not  used  to  wearing  it 


280  THE   HENCHMAN 

yet.  But  he's  a  treasure.  He's  Mrs.  Teunis 
Van  Dam's  grandson,  you  know,  and  like  her  is 
descended  from  all  those  delightful  old  Dutchmen 
who  make  such  enviable  ancestors,  and  have 
stained  glass  windows  in  the  cathedral.  He 
knows  who  is  who,  I  assure  you.  Ex-Senator 
Ludlow  does  too,  for  that  matter ;  though  he 
doesn't  care  for  Mrs.  Van  Dam's  circle.  He 
thinks  it  too  stately  and  old  regime.  He  goes 
with  the  younger  set — Mrs.  Tommy  Kidder's 
—  and  he  says  Mrs.  Tommy  is  quite  my  own 
style." 

The  governor  "entered  the  room  in  the  midst 
of  these  matters  and  listened  soberly.  Shelby 
had  taken  on  more  years  than  his  congressional 
service  spanned.  His  dark  hair  had  grayed  at 
the  temples  ;  his  old  puffiness  of  jowl  and  dewlap 
had  vanished ;  and  the  strong  bone  framework  of 
his  head  showed  for  what  it  truly  was.  Tuscarora 
ancients,  who  remembered  the  pioneer,  said  that 
Shelby  favored  his  grandfather. 

Bowers  turned  to  him  with  a  laugh. 

"  It's  a  mighty  good  thing  you've  got  a  skilled 
pilot  in  these  waters,"  he  said. 

"  Yes,  Cora  knows  her  way  around,"  returned 
her  husband.  "  I  dare  say  the  world's  a  brighter 
place  for  this  varnish,  though  I've  noticed  that 


THE    HENCHMAN  281 

when  you  scrape  through  it  people  average  much 
alike.  It's  meant  more  to  me  to-day  to  have  you 
here,  old  friend,  than  the  notables.  You  gave 
me  my  start."  He  hesitated,  glanced  at  his  wife, 
and  added  :  "  But  they  were  all  welcome.  Cora 
has  come  into  her  kingdom,  and  I  wouldn't  abate 
a  single  courtier." 

"  I've  waited  for  my  kingdom,"  she  declared ; 
"  waited  for  it  in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  You  can't 
call  Washington  anything  else  for  a  congressman's 
wife.  Her  husband  may  get  glory ;  she  gets 
snubs.  Now  my  turn  has  come,  and  I've  plans 
galore.  Milicent's  debut  is  one  of  them.  I'll 
bring  her  out  with  a  ball  when  she  has  had  enough 
of  her  finishing  school.  Ex-Senator  Ludlow 
thinks  it  an  inspiration." 

The  men  exchanged  a  look. 

"  Handsome  Ludlow  isn't  an  ideal  adviser  for 
young  girls,"  dropped  Shelby,  quietly. 

"  He's  a  victim  of  gossip ;  he  told  me  so. 
You  and  I  know  too  well  what  that  means  to 
countenance  it.  Besides,  you're  going  to  appoint 
him  commissioner  of  something  or  other  —  I  read 
it  in  yesterday's  papers  ;  but  that's  politics,  I  sup- 
pose." 

Shelby  gloomed  in  his  corner,  but  made  no 
answer. 


282  THE    HENCHMAN 

Bowers  essayed  a  diversion. 

"  I  saw  Bernard  Graves's  wife  in  the  assembly 
chamber  this  morning,"  he  remarked.  "  Seems 
to  me  she's  looking  rather  peaked  since  her 
marriage." 

"  Ruth  Graves  here  !  "  exclaimed  Cora. 

"  I  saw  her  too,"  said  Shelby.  "  She  congrat- 
ulated me  later  in  the  executive  chamber.  She 
has  been  living  in  New  York  this  winter.  Graves 
is  still  lecturing  around  the  country,  telling  how  he 
wrote  his  poem  and  what  it's  all  about." 

"  I  presume  she  couldn't  resist  coming  up  to 
see  how  we  wotild  behave,"  Cora  reflected,  aloud. 

"  She  is  visiting  Mrs.  Van  Dam,"  added  the 
governor. 

"  Of  all  people  !  "  Mrs.  Shelby's  wonder  was 
unrestrained.  "  I  do  remember,  though,"  she 
continued  presently,  "  that  she  made  friends  here 
when  she  was  in  Vassar  College.  It's  plain 
enough  why  Mrs.  Van  Dam  has  taken  her  up 
again.  She  wants  to  know  all  about  us." 

It  was  an  easy  step  now  to  the  conclusion  that 
perhaps  such  an  old  friend  really  merited  an  invi- 
tation to  the  executive  mansion. 

The  governor  brushed  his  forehead  with  a 
weary  gesture,  drew  a  chair  to  Bowers's  side,  and 
unfolded  a  bundle  of  manuscript. 


THE   HENCHMAN  283 

"  I  know  it's  late,"  he  said  apologetically, "  but 
there's  a  bit  of  my  message  I'd  like  to  read  to 
you.  There'll  be  no  time  in  the  morning  if 
you're  still  bent  on  taking  the  early  train  to  Tus- 
carora.  I'd  like  your  opinion  whether  it's  what 
the  plain  people  want." 

Mrs.  Shelby  found  the  reading  unspeakably 
juiceless  and  went  yawning  to  bed.  Nor  did  the 
governor  detain  Bowers  long.  A  servant  entering 
presently  discovered  Shelby  before  the  grate  alone. 

"  Don't  wait  up  for  me,"  he  directed  kindly. 
"  I'll  see  to  this  fire,  and  remember  not  to  blow 
out  the  gas." 

The  relic  of  the  old  regime  restrained  his  sur- 
prise at  these  democratic  doings,  smiled  deco- 
rously, and  withdrew.  Jocosity  slipped  out  at  his 
dignified  heels.  The  man  before  the  fire  drank 
deep  in  self-communion,  and  his  face  was  grave. 
For  the  first  time  that  crowded  day  he  could 
look  his  future  in  the  face.  Yet,  evoked  by  a 
woman's  handclasp  in  the  long  line  which  had 
filed  by  him  as  he  stood  in  the  executive  cham- 
ber surrounded  by  his  glittering  staff,  it  was 
the  past  which  most  absorbed  him.  It  struck 
him  as  a  wanton  caprice  of  fate  that  they  should 
have  been  flung  together  that  day.  Ruth,  whom 
he  had  promised  a  share  in  these  honors  ;  Ruth, 


284  THE    HENCHMAN 

whom  he  had  boasted  that  he  would  return  and 
claim  ;  Ruth,  whom  he  had  put  away  because  he 
must,  because  of  a  loftier  standard  which  —  grim- 
mest irony  of  all  !  —  she  herself  had  unwittingly 
set  up.  He  wondered  —  as  he  had  wondered 
often  in  the  years  which  had  witnessed  her  mar- 
riage, his  own,  and  his  rise  to  power  —  whether 
she  had  waited  that  night ;  whether  she  had  cared 
as  he,  apart  from  the  red  passion  of  the  struggle, 
could  perceive  that  he  had  cared. 

A  vagrant  memory  of  the  morning's  inaugura- 
tion intruded.  The  moment  of  his  oath  had 
been  a  time  of  solemn  consecration  for  him,  a 
laying  on  of  hands  unseen  ;  the  shades  of  his 
greatest  predecessors  stood  round  about ;  the 
genius  of  the  state  was  in  presence.  Then  came 
Cora  and  kissed  him.  Emotional  souls  in  the 
gallery  applauded  the  act,  but  the  husband  divined 
its  prompting  egoism  and  was  cold. 


CHAPTER   II 

NEITHER  the  public  nor  the  honorable  body  to 
which  it  was  directly  addressed  took  the  new  gov- 
ernor's message  stressing  general  retrenchment 
and  the  pruning  of  useless  offices  seriously. 
Nothing  in  the  recent  course  of  the  party  wooed 
faith  in  its  promises  to  purge  and  live  cleanly,  and 
the  accident  of  a  huge  majority  in  the  late  elec- 
tions, owing  to  national  issues,  had  set  not  a  few 
mouths  watering  for  fruits  of  victory  which 
had  lately  dangled  out  of  reach.  The  machine 
was  perfected  to  its  utmost,  and  the  young  year 
was  held  to  signalize  the  full  flowering  of  the 
Boss's  topping  supremacy.  The  great  man  was 
now  master  of  the  county  committees  of  the 
metropolis  and  the  greater  cities ;  of  the  State 
Committee  ;  of  the  Legislature,  of  the  lieutenant- 
governor,  and  apparently  of  Shelby.  The  car- 
toons depicted  the  chief  executive  as  a  craven 
monarch  yielding  his  sceptre  to  the  leering  power 
behind  the  throne ;  as  a  marionette  twitched  by 
obvious  wires  ;  as  a  muzzled  dog,  ticketed  with 
the  Boss's  name. 

285 


286  THE    HENCHMAN 

Whereupon  Shelby,  in  a  quiet  way,  did  an 
audacious  thing.  By  an  odd  chance  the  first  en- 
actment of  the  Legislature  which  reached  his  desk 
affected  Tuscarora  County.  It  was  a  general 
measure  concerning  marsh  lands,  philanthropically 
worded  and  fathered  by  an  assemblyman  from  an 
eastern  county ;  but  its  special  purpose,  as  Shelby 
fathomed,  was  to  give  certain  Tuscarora  people  a 
selfish  advantage  in  a  locality  as  familiar  to  him  as 
his  hand.  The  Swamp,  as  Tuscarora  called  it, 
embodied  his  boyhood  notion  of  primeval  nature, 
the  one  spot  untamed  amidst  tilled  and  retilled 
commonplaceness,  the  last  fastness  and  abiding- 
place  of  the  unknown.  Rude  corduroy  roads 
threaded  the  wilderness  in  parts,  and  from  this 
Red-Sea  sort  of  passage  the  lad  had  peered  and 
questioned  in  delicious  fear.  Even  now  the  man 
had  but  to  shut  his  eyes  to  recall  it  with  the 
senses  of  the  boy.  Cowslip,  wood  violet,  and 
Jack-in-the-pulpit  bloomed  again,  the  scent  of 
mint  was  in  his  nostrils,  fairy  lakes  lured  amidst 
the  ferns,  and  the  way  wound  through  lofty  halls 
whose  wonderful  pillars  set  foot  in  emerald  pools 
and  sprang  in  vaulting  hung  high  with  wild  grape. 
Once  in  those  tender  years  he  had  skirted  the 
spot  by  night  when  owls  hooted,  unnatural  frogs 
boomed,  will-o'-the-wisp  stalked  abroad,  and 


THE    HENCHMAN  287 

Old  Mystery  held  carnival ;  that  breathless  expe- 
rience almost  outdid  the  delights  by  day.  All 
this  issued  from  the  phraseology  of  a  bill  —  this, 
and  something  more.  He  held  the  measure  a 
day  or  two  and  invited  its  sponsors,  ostensible 
and  real,  to  a  conference:  They  were  trained 
legislators,  with  whom  he  had  served  and  frater- 
nized, and  in  this  matter  furthered  the  interests 
of  men  in  his  native  county  who  had  backed  him 
from  the  beginning  of  his  career. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  regarding  them  quizzi- 
cally, "  this  bill  reminds  me  of  a  Tuscarora  story." 
They  laughed  at  the  familiar  beginning,  and  the 
governor  laughed  with  them.  "  It's  about  a  man 
who  ran  a  grist-mill  on  a  creek  fed  by  a  certain 
swamp,  which  I  guess  you  know  about.  He  was 
easy-going,  the  water  was  often  too  low  for  grind- 
ing, and  the  little  mill  had  business  for  six,  since 
there  wasn't  a  rival  within  thirty  miles.  The 
pioneers  came  prepared  to  camp  when  they 
brought  grist,  and  I  suppose  loafed  around  pitch- 
ing quoits  and  cursing  the  mill  trust  by  whatever 
name  they  called  a  monopoly  then.  One  day 
along  came  a  cute  boy  astride  a  mule  with  two 
bags  of  grain.  He  sized  up  the  crowd  ahead  of 
him  as  he  carried  in  his  grist,  and  decided  that  if 
he  waited  his  turn  the  country  would  grow  up 


288  THE   HENCHMAN 

without  him.  The  miller  happened  to  be  tinker- 
ing his  water-wheel,  so  the  boy  got  his  bags  into 
a  dark  corner  unobserved,  and  with  a  handful  of 
mill  dust  gave  his  work  the  finishing  touch  of  ripe 
old  age.  I  dare  say  you  think  he  took  the  man 
in,  but  he  didn't.  t  Bub,'  said  the  miller,  *  I  used 
to  do  that  trick  myself.' ' 

Shelby's  old  associates  in  log-rolling  took  the 
unmasking  good-naturedly,  but  declined  the 
amendment  he  suggested.  He  dismissed  them 
with  charming  civility,  jotted  a  laconic  memoran- 
dum that  the  bill  meditated  a  raid  on  public 
property  for  private  gain,  and  with  the  calm  of  a 
gardener  lopping  a  weed,  withheld  his  signature. 

It  were  hard  to  say  whose  smart  was  shrewder, 
the  spoilsmen's  who  mourned  the  backsliding  of 
a  pal,  or  the  professional  reformers'  who  chewed 
the  galling  fact  that  not  one  of  the  elect,  but  a 
practical  politician,  had  done  this  creditable  thing. 
Both  joined  forces  to  fling  clods.  In  the  greater 
world,  however,  Shelby's  simple  act  won  swift 
approval.  In  the  cartoonists'  fancy  the  wires  of 
the  puppet-show  had  gone  awry,  the  dog  bit  the 
heel  at  which  it  slunk,  the  usurper's  knuckles 
were  rapped  by  the  sceptre  he  would  have  seized. 
The  press  teemed  with  anecdotes  and  personal 
gossip  of  the  governor.  Everything  he  did  or 


THE    HENCHMAN  289 

said  became  of  interest :  his  dress,  his  habits  of 
work,  his  Tuscarora  stories,  his  domestic  life. 
An  admirer  on  Long  Island  who  bred  bulldogs 
sent  him  a  white  pup  trained  to  answer  to  the 
name  of  "Veto."  Triplets  in  the  valley  of  the 
Susquehanna  were  christened  "  Calvin,"  "  Ross," 
and  "  Shelby,"  respectively. 

During  this  time  no  word  passed  between  Shelby 
and  the  Boss.  The  leader  had  not  witnessed 
the  inaugural  ceremonies.  Indeed,  he  had  not 
attended  the  inauguration  of  a  governor  since  his 
party  regained  control  of  the  state.  He  and  the 
governor-elect  had  lunched  together  frequently, 
however,  and  in  concord  discussed  the  forthcom- 
ing message  and  the  party  policy  of  the  incoming 
Legislature.  With  two  years  of  common  work 
and  intimacy  behind  them,  they  felt  slight  need 
of  explanations.  The  machine  as  it  stood  was  of 
their  joint  perfecting.  Accordingly,  the  Boss 
viewed  the  cartoons  with  his  habitual  serenity, 
noted  that  a  fund  of  good  will  was  accruing  to  the 
party  through  the  personal  popularity  of  the  new 
executive,  and  smilingly  assured  the  reporters,  who 
scented  a  quarrel,  that  Shelby  was  the  right  man 
in  the  right  place.  He  found  no  thorn  in  a 
special  message  reminding  the  fortnight-old  Legis- 
lature that,  with  the  chief  financial  measures  yet 


290  THE    HENCHMAN 

untouched,  the  bills  already  introduced  called  for 
the  outlay  of  millions  ;  nor  did  the  speedy  pruning 
of  several  sinecures,  one  of  which  was  held  by  that 
tried  veteran,  Jacob  Krantz,  dash  his  cheery  con- 
fidence. Krantz  and  the  ousted  were  quietly 
found  corporate  business  openings  of  glittering 
promise,  and  the  campaign  slogans  were  proved 
no  mere  catch-vote  generalities. 

Meanwhile  the  ancient  city  of  Albany  privily 
assorted  its  impressions  of  Shelby's  wife,  and 
awaited  the  dictum  of  Mrs.  Teunis  Van  Dam. 
Although  it  was  by  deeds,  rather  than  speech, 
that  she  made  her  judgments  public,  Mrs. 
Van  Dam  among  her  intimates  did  not  deny 
herself  the  luxury  of  a  stout  opinion  vigorously 
expressed. 

"  Mrs.  Shelby's  a  fool,"  asserted  the  old  lady 
in  her  positive  way  to  Canon  North,  "but,  after  all, 
one  of  our  own  church  people  and  the  governor's 
wife." 

"  Either  claim  is  weighty,"  smiled  North  ;  "  ten- 
derness for  the  family  skeleton,  respect  for  the 
state.  United  they're  irresistible."  For  a  social 
autocrat  the  canon  took  his  position  simply.  In- 
deed he  would  have  been  rather  astonished  to 
learn  that  he  was  anything  of  the  kind.  "  But  the 
governor  —  he's  genuine,"  he  continued  musingly ; 


THE    HENCHMAN  291 

"  I'm  drawn  to  the  man.  He  seems  to  me  a 
power  to  be  reckoned  with  —  presidential  timber, 
perhaps.  Of  course  all  our  governors  are  heirs 
apparent  by  virtue  of  their  office ;  but  unlike  so 
many  of  them,  he  isn't  of  a  stature  to  be  dwarfed 
by  the  suggestion.  I  think  him  rather  Lincoln- 
esque  in  a  way,  though  I  don't  press  the  compari- 
son. Perhaps  it's  merely  his  smile  —  have  you 
noticed  it  ?  —  the  '  sad  and  melancholy  smile  on 
the  lips  of  great  men '  that  Amiel  tells  us  is  the 
badge  of  the  misunderstood." 

"Pshaw!"  returned  Mrs.  Van  Dam.  "I've 
known  two  or  three  great  men  who  wore  sad 
smiles.  When  a  disordered  liver  wasn't  at  the 
bottom  of  it  'twas  the  wife." 

North  gave  over  the  argument. 

"  Nobody  would  impeach  Shelby's  liver,"  he 
laughed.  "  He's  as  robust  as  a  patent  medicine 
witness  after  taking." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  accuse  Mrs.  Shelby,"  rejoined 
Mrs.  Van  Dam,  quickly.  "  The  governor's  smile 
isn't  the  issue.  One  and  one  don't  make  one  in 
the  state  of  matrimony  any  more  than  elsewhere 
on  the  globe,  and  whether  he  and  his  wife  agree 
or  disagree  doesn't  interest  me  in  the  slightest. 
What  does  concern  me  is  the  important  fact  that 
the  mistress  of  the  executive  mansion  of  the  great 


292  THE   HENCHMAN 

state  of  New  York  appears  not  to  know  certain 
things  she  ought,  chief  among  them  the  true  char- 
acter of  ex-Senator  Ludlow." 

"  I'm  afraid  it's  true,"  owned  the  canon. 

"  Before  Ruth  Graves  left  I  suggested  that  she 
intercede.  She  has  tact,  knows  the  Shelbys  well, 
and  had  received  an  invitation  to  visit  them.  But 
she  declined  visit,  intercession,  and  all.  I'm  sorry. 
Somebody  must  speak  to  Mrs.  Shelby,  and  an  old 
acquaintance  could  carry  off  such  a  mission  with 
better  grace." 

"  Why  didn't  Graves  come  on  with  his  wife  ?  " 
inquired  the  canon,  irrelevantly. 

"  Don't  mention  the  simpleton  !  I've  no  pa- 
tience with  him  —  or  with  Ruth  for  marrying  him. 
We  never  can  see  the  reason  for  other  people's 
marriages,  but  that  one  above  all  others  was 
incomprehensible.  If  ever  a  woman  needed  to 
marry  a  dynamo  to  bring  out  her  best  it  was 
Ruth  Temple.  And  she  married  Bernard  Graves 
—  a  man  who  has  degenerated  into  a  poseur  before 
women's  clubs.  Marriages  made  in  heaven  indeed ! 
Give  me  Darwin  and  natural  selection." 

"  You  really  have  something  of  the  kind," 
laughed  North.  "  She  was  a  free  agent,  his  plu- 
mage evidently  attracted  in  the  old,  old  way,  and 
so  she  made  her  choice." 


THE   HENCHMAN  293 

"  Fiddlesticks  !  Don't  tell  me  that  she  made  a 
fool  of  herself  of  her  own  free  will.  That  man  isn't 
capable  of  stirring  the  emotions  of  a  poster  girl 
with  orange  skin  and  purple  hair,  let  alone  a  flesh 
and  blood  woman.  Something  outside  herself — 
don't  laugh;  I'm  a  woman  and  I  know  —  some- 
body, not  Graves  himself,  bred  that  folly.  If  she 
were  another  sort  of  nature,  I'd  say  she  married 
for  spite  ;  but  she  —  " 

"  For  respite,  perhaps  —  respite  from  herself. 
I've  known  cases.  But  we're  far  afield  from  the 
Shelbys.  Shall  I  approach  the  governor  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Mrs.  Van  Dam,  with  decision. 
"  The  wife  is  the  one  to  see,  if  I  know  anything 
of  women,  and  this  is  a  woman's  task ;  I,  clearly, 
am  the  instrument,  and  shall  not  shirk." 

"  You  would  have  made  an  eminent  surgeon," 
remarked  North,  with  his  slow  smile. 

The  unflinching  Good  Samaritan  selected  an 
hour  two  days  later  when  the  governor's  wife  was 
likely  to  be  alone,  and  sent  up  her  card.  Not  a 
few  women  had  sighed  for  a  sight  of  Mrs.  Teunis 
Van  Dam's  calling  card,  and  sighed  in  vain ;  but 
Cora  Shelby,  who  had  heard  of  these  yearnings, 
thanked  her  God  that  she  was  not  as  other  women 
are,  and  glanced  at  the  pasteboard  with  indiffer- 
ence. 


294  THE    HENCHMAN 

"Yes;  I  suppose  I'm  at  home,"  she  said  lan- 
guidly, posturing  for  the  maid,  and  for  a  full  half- 
hour  left  the  august  visitor  waiting  below  stairs 
while  she  turned  the  pages  of  a  novel. 

The  influence  of  Mrs.  Tommy  Kidder  had 
determined  this  petty  course.  This  sprightly 
young  person,  being  herself  a  real  social  force, 
shared  little  of  the  awe  in  which  Mrs.  Teunis 
Van  Dam  was  held  by  most  of  her  townsfolk  and 
by  all  newcomers,  and  Cora,  with  her  own  ideas 
of  the  part  which  she,  as  the  governor's  wife, 
should  play,  had  taken  Mrs.  Tommy's  frothy  non- 
sense at  rather  more  than  its  surface  value.  She 
was  more  than  ever  alive  to  Mrs.  Van  Dam's 
importance  —  her  grandson,  the  military  secretary, 
was  an  ever  present  reminder ;  but  she  cherished 
a  quickened  sense  of  her  own  importance,  too, 
and  was  vigilantly  alert  to  withstand  any  sign  or 
symptom  of  what  Mrs.  Tommy  called  "  Knicker- 
bocker domination." 

Her  first  shaft,  however,  fell  wide  of  the  mark. 
Mrs.  Van  Dam  serenely  assumed  that  her  tardy 
hostess  meant  to  pay  her  the  compliment  of 'a 
more  elaborate  toilet,  and  employed  the  interval 
in  an  interested  survey  of  the  changes  wrought  in 
the  reception  room's  arrangement  by  its  new  mis- 
tress. So  absorbing  did  she  find  this  occupation, 


THE    HENCHMAN  295 

that  she  utterly  missed  the  glacial  temperature  of 
Cora's  greeting. 

"  I  must  congratulate  you  on  resurrecting  that 
bit  of  mahogany,"  declared  the  old  lady,  indicating 
a  table.  "  I've  missed  that  piece  for  three  adminis- 
trations. Wherever  did  you  find  it  ?  " 

"  Really,  I  can't  remember,"  fibbed  Cora,  resolv- 
ing straightway  to  banish  it. 

The  military  secretary  had  suggested  its  restor- 
ation, and  she  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  he 
had  been  inspired  by  his  grandmother. 

"  It's  a  real  link  with  the  past,"  added  Mrs. 
Van  Dam,  with  a  far-away  look  in  her  eyes.  "  I 
can  recall  it  as  long  ago  as  Governor  Tilden's 
time." 

The  great  Mrs.  Van  Dam's  cordiality  thawed 
Cora  in  spite  of  herself,  and  she  was  well  in  the 
way  of  unconditional  surrender  to  her  charm 
when  the  caller  cut  straight  into  the  pith  of  her 
errand. 

"  Without  beating  about  the  bush,  my  dear," 
she  began,  "  I'm  here  on  a  meddlesome  business 
which  you  mustn't  take  amiss.  As  an  old  woman 
who  has  seen  something  of  the  world  in  general, 
and  much  of  this  queer  little  Albany  corner  of  it 
in  particular,  you  must  permit  me  to  tell  you  that 
you  have  been  too  generously  lenient  with  a  per- 


296  THE    HENCHMAN 

son  who  has  forfeited  the  right  to  darken  decent 
people's  doors.  I  mean  ex-Senator  Ludlow ;  and 
I  presume  I  needn't  specify  his  misdeeds." 

"  No.  You  need  not,"  rejoined  Cora,  stiffen- 
ing. "  I'm  not  interested  in  scandal." 

Mrs.  Teunis  Van  Dam  straightened  rigidly  in 
her  chair. 

"  I  fear  that,  after  all,  I  must  particularize,"  she 
replied.  "  Obviously  you  can't  know  the  truth 
of  things." 

"  I  know  that  his  wife  divorced  him,  and  I  have 
heard  a  dozen  or  more  malicious  tales  about  his 
present  life.  I  doubt  if  you  can  add  to  the  col- 
lection." 

"  You  put  me  in  a  false  position." 

"  And  you  reflect  on  mine  in  assuming  to  dic- 
tate whom  I  shall  receive.  This  house  belongs 
to  the  state.  Every  citizen  is  welcome." 

Mrs.  Van  Dam  had  gathered  her  furs  and  risen, 
but  at  this  she  paused. 

"  There,"  she  exclaimed,  with  a  little  laugh, 
"what  women  we  are  !  I've  been  talking  of  one 
thing,  you  of  another.  You  have  the  right  view 
of  your  official  obligations  precisely.  Of  course 
the  man  is  free  to  come  to  your  public  receptions. 
The  state  can't  establish  a  moral  quarantine,  more's 
the  pity." 


THE    HENCHMAN  297 

"  Ex-Senator  Ludlow  is  free  to  come  to  my 
house  at  all  times,"  cut  in  Cora,  with  a  brilliant 
crimson  dot  in  either  cheek.  "  I  do  not  sit  in 
pharisaical  judgment  on  the  unfortunate.  I've 
had  his  story  as  well  as  that  of  you  who  are 
against  him.  I  believe  him  a  misjudged  man 
who  deserves  a  courageous  friend." 

"  Oh,  if  it  is  a  question  of  friendship  —  "  and 
Mrs.  Van  Dam  terminated  sentence  and  inter- 
view with  a  shrug. 

Yet  Cora  had  not  seen  the  last  of  her  visitor's 
stately  back  before  she  repented  her  open  cham- 
pionship of  Handsome  Ludlow.  Knickerbocker 
domination,  not  conviction,  had  forced  her  hand. 
Since  she  had  hung  her  banner  on  the  walls,  how- 
ever, she  resolved  to  stand  fast,  and  the  following 
Sunday  morning  issued  an  unmistakable  declara- 
tion of  war.  On  her  way  to  service  she  saw 
Ludlow  crossing  the  park  before  the  capitol,  and 
stopped  her  carriage. 

" c  Nymph,  in  thy  orisons  be  all  my  sins  re- 
member'd,'  "  quoted  the  man,  his  handsome,  im- 
pudent eyes  on  hers. 

"  I  propose  that  you'll  do  that  for  yourself," 
Cora  retorted  archly.  "  Get  in." 

She  had  intended  going  to  the  cathedral,  but 
with  a  sudden  resolve  she  ordered  the  carriage 


298  THE    HENCHMAN 

driven  to  an  older  church  just  at  hand,  which 
time  out  of  mind  had  made  special  provision  for 
the  head  of  the  state,  down  whose  central  aisle 
she  marshalled  Ludlow,  and  installed  him  in  the 
governor's  pew. 


CHAPTER   III 

HAD  the  protest  against  Knickerbocker  arro- 
gance languished  at  this  pass,  history  would  be 
the  poorer ;  but  Cora  Shelby  found  it  impossible 
to  stop  with  this  show  of  independence.  Her 
ambition  was  whetted  for  an  exercise  of  actual 
power,  and  the  outcome  was  the  famous  battle  of 
Beverwyck,  whose  story  still  lacks  its  balladist. 

Early  in  her  survey  of  Albany  society,  Cora 
had  met  with  the  Beverwyck  Club. 

"  It  is  the  local  academy  of  immortals,"  in- 
structed the  military  secretary.  "  Its  judgments 
may  not  be  infallible,  but  they're  beyond  appeal. 
It  is  the  pink  of  exclusiveness ;  it  worships  eti- 
quette above  all  other  gods ;  and  its  receptions 
to  incoming  governors  demand  the  reddest  letter- 
ing in  the  calendar." 

When  Shelby's  turn  for  this  signal  honor  drew 
near,  and  the  military  secretary,  to  whom  Fortune, 
not  content  with  sending  him  into  the  world  a 
grandson  of  Mrs.  Teunis  Van  Dam,  had  added 
membership  in  the  Beverwyck  Club,  approached 

299 


3oo  THE   HENCHMAN 

him  to  discuss  preliminaries,  the  governor  cheer- 
fully referred  him  to  his  wife  in  whose  social 
knowingness  he  placed  an  abounding  trust.  Of 
Albany  other  than  as  a  legislative  workshop  he 
knew  next  to  nothing.  His  social  progress  in 
the  salad  days  of  his  first  term  in  the  Assembly 
had  begun  in  a  saloon  behind  the  capitol  much 
frequented  by  departmental  clerks,  whence  through 
hotel  corridor  intercourse  he  evolved  by  his  sec- 
ond session  to  a  grillroom,  patronized  by  public 
servants  of  higher  cast  who  gave  stag  dinners  and 
occasional  theatre  parties,  which  called  for  evening 
dress.  Up  to  this  period  Shelby  had  never  found 
evening  clothes  essential  to  his  happiness.  His 
little  sectarian  college  had  rather  frowned  on  such 
garments,  and  he,  too,  for  a  time  had  vaguely 
considered  them  un-American.  Yet,  taught  by 
the  grillroom,  he  assumed  this  livery,  wore  off 
its  shyness,  and  grew  to  like  it  for  the  best  it  sig- 
nified. Here  evolution  paused.  Mrs.  Teunis 
Van  Dam,  Canon  North,  and  the  Beverwyck 
Club,  so  far  as  they  stood  for  anything,  peopled 
a  frigid  zone  of  inconsequence  which  he  had  no 
wish  to  penetrate.  Washington,  influence  in  his 
party,  and  intimacy  with  its  leaders  sophisticated 
him  before  his  return ;  behind  every  mask  he 
now  discerned  a  human  being ;  and  no  social 


THE   HENCHMAN  301 

ordeal  terrified.  Nevertheless,  something  of  his 
old-time  diffidence  toward  the  unknown  country 
beyond  the  grillroom  lingered,  and  it  made  for 
peace  that  his  wife  seemed  so  competent  to  guide. 

On  the  score  of  her  competency,  Cora  enter- 
tained no  misgivings,  and  the  day  following  Hand- 
some Ludlow's  public  elevation  to  sanctity  she 
met  the  club's  representatives,  the  military  secre- 
tary, and  an  august  judge  of  the  Court  of  Appeals, 
with  a  self-possession  she  felt  would  grace  the 
daughter  of  a  belted  earl.  The  judge,  after  some 
ponderous  compliments,  told  her  that  the  com- 
mittee in  charge,  having  assured  itself  through 
the  secretary  that  the  governor  and  herself  had 
no  conflicting  engagement,  had  agreed  upon  a 
near  date  for  the  reception,  which  he  named. 
Cora  promptly  decided  that  in  not  consulting 
her  the  military  secretary  had  been  wanting  in 
respect,  and  to  punish  him  invented  a  previous 
engagement  out  of  hand.  Withered  by  his  sen- 
ior's Jove-like  frown,  the  young  man  apologized 
in  hot-skinned  contrition  for  his  ignorance  of  the 
unknowable. 

"  It's  barely  possible  I  didn't  mention  it," 
dropped  Cora,  scrupulously  fair. 

This  gracious  intercession  for  the  culprit  had 
no  weight  with  the  judge,  who  continued  to 


302  THE    HENCHMAN 

regard  the  secretary  with  severity,  and  left  him 
wholly  out  of  the  discussion  of  a  date  which 
should  meet  her  wishes.  This  matter  settled 
without  further  affront  to  her  dignity,  the  judge 
expanded  under  her  flattering  attention,  and  gos- 
siped of  the  reception  itself. 

"  Between  ourselves,"  he  confessed,  "  the  invi- 
tation list  is  bothering  us  unconscionably.  You 
see,  it  has  expanded  beyond  our  space.  At  the 
last  governor's  reception  the  club-house  was  in- 
vaded by  a  mob  —  a  mob,  madame,  —  there  is  no 
other  expression,  —  which  I  need  -not  add  is  out 
of  keeping  with "  our  traditions.  But  how  draw 
the  line  without  offence  ?  " 

With  the  dregs  of  her  wrath  against  Mrs.  Van 
Dam  stirred  afresh  by  the  disciplining  of  the 
grandson,  Cora  perceived  and  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity for  a  swingeing  blow. 

"  There's  an  absurdly  simple  remedy,"  she 
returned  thoughtfully ;  "  but  of  course  it  would 
hardly  become  me  to  offer  suggestions." 

"  My  dear  madame,"  the  judge  protested, 
"  it  would  be  an  act  of  charity." 

After  a  politic  interval  of  coaxing,  Cora 
explained  :  —  , 

"  The  reception  is  meant  to  be  official  in  spirit, 
isn't  it  ?  Then  why  not  make  it  so  in  fact  ? 


THE    HENCHMAN  303 

Limit  your  invitations  to  the  official  circle.  If 
all  the  townspeople  unconnected  with  the  gov- 
ernment are  excluded,  no  one  need  take  offence." 

A  few  days  afterward  the  invitations  went  forth, 
restricted  according  to  Cora's  plan,  and  the  heart- 
burnings which  were  kindled  scorched  the 'club's 
self-esteem  like  nothing  in  its  staid  career.  But 
while  others  merely  bewailed  the  amazing  fact  of 
their  exclusion,  Mrs.  Teunis  Van  Dam,  with 
characteristic  energy,  determined  to  probe  the 
indignity  to  its  author,  and  summoned  her  grand- 
son to  an  absorbing  interview. 

"  Schuyler  Livingston  Smith,"  she  inquired, 
"  what  is  Mrs.  Tommy  Kidder's  relation  to  pub- 
lic affairs  that  she  should  receive  an  invitation  to 
the  Beverwyck  Club  ?  " 

The  secretary  named  an  insignificant  board  of 
which  Mr.  Kidder  was  a  member.  His  grand- 
mother rapidly  instanced  a  dozen  other  names, 
and  repeated  her  question.  In  most  cases  the 
young  man  had  to  confess  his  ignorance  of  their 
claims. 

"  So,"  she  commented  in  the  end  ;  "  so.  And 
I,  whose  people  have  helped  govern  this  com- 
munity since  there  was  a  colony  to  govern,  am 
beyond  the  pale  !  But  who  was  Peter  Stuy- 
vesant  beside  Mrs.  Tommy  Kidder's  husband? 


304  THE    HENCHMAN 

Nobody.  Who  was  Abraham  de  Peyster?  who 
was  Gerardus  Beekman  ?  who  was  Rip  Van 
Dam  ?  And  the  Schuylers,  Livingstons,  and 
Van  Rensselaers  ?  All  nobodies.  My  dear 
child,  what  lunatic  in  the  Beverwyck  Club  sug- 
gested this  official  classification,  which  even  the 
Archangel  Michael  could  not  carry  out  ? " 

Her  grandson,  with  no  friendly  recollections, 
named  the  judge. 

"The  silly  old  man!"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Van 
Dam.  "  And  who  inspired  him  ?  " 

He  cheerfully  told  her,  with  the  added  detail 
that  Mrs.  Shelby  and  the  judge  had  subsequently 
gone  over  the  invitation  list  together.  She  was 
silent  for  a  time,  and  then  dismissed  him.  Alone 
with  her  thoughts,  she  elaborated  a  countermine, 
whose  energy  was  specially  directed  against  the 
Beverwyck  Club,  though  she  had  no  objection  to 
hoisting  the  governor's  wife  in  the  explosion, 
albeit  she  refused  to  consider  her  the  real  antag- 
onist. The  true  offender  was  the  exclusive 
organization  which  had  prostituted  itself  to  such 
ignoble  influence. 

Within  an  hour  of  her  grandson's  departure 
Mrs.  Teunis  Van  Dam  despatched  an  invitation 
of  her  own.  The  Beverwyck  Club  reception  was 
scheduled  to  run  its  formal  course  from  nine  to 


THE    HENCHMAN  305 

eleven  o'clock ;  Mrs.  Van  Dam  asked  the  gov- 
ernor and  his  lady  to  dine  with  her  on  the  same 
evening  at  the  hour  of  eight. 

All  hinged  now  on  the  personal  equation  of 
Cora  Shelby,  whose  vagaries  the  old  lady  owned 
herself  quite  unable  to  forecast.  Nor  in  this 
respect  was  Cora  herself  a  much  wiser  prophet. 
Her  first  instinct,  mixed  with  wonder,  was  to 
decline,  and  she  held  to  this  opinion  the  better 
part  of  an  hour.  Yet  before  the  impulse  could 
stiffen  into  resolution,  it  met  the  neutralizing 
influence  of  the  old  town,  which,  partly  through 
the  military  secretary,  partly  through  the  scoffing 
Ludlow,  she  had  unwittingly  assimilated.  By 
these  teachings  she  had  learned  the  flattering, 
almost  royal,  significance  of  Mrs.  Teunis  Van 
Dam's  dinner  invitations.  She  was  seized  afresh 
by  a  curiosity  to  observe  how  they  did  things  in 
Quality  Row,  and  became  of  two  minds  forth- 
with. Appointed  for  the  same  evening  as  the 
club  reception,  the  dinner  had,  moreover,  the 
look  of  a  peace  overture,  a  concession  to  her 
power,  even  an  admission  of  defeat,  which  was 
soothing.  She  could  hardly  present  the  matter 
to  Shelby  in  this  light,  as  she  had  withheld  all 
mention  of  the  Ludlow  business  from  his  ear ; 
but  with  a  generosity  which  astonished  herself, 


3o6  THE    HENCHMAN 

she  dwelt  on  Mrs.  Teunis  Van  Dam's  undoubted 
prestige,  and  ended  by  advising  acceptance. 

Shelby,  preoccupied  with  an  appeal  for  the 
pardon  of  a  consumptive  forger,  mechanically 
agreed. 

"  Sooner  or  later  we'd  have  had  to  endure 
both  functions,"  he  said.  "  It  is  time  saved  to 
pack  them  into  one  evening." 

Cora  bridled.  It  was  a  prodigious  affair  for 
her  that  he  took  so  indifferently. 

"  Time,  time,"  she  reprimanded ;  "  the  state 
doesn't  expect  its  governor  to  grub  like  a  clerk." 

Shelby  promised  to  mend  his  ways;  but  the 
dinner  and  reception  occupied  his  thoughts  so 
little  that  he  worked  beyond  his  usual  hour  at 
the  capitol  on  the  afternoon  of  the  appointed 
day,  and,  coming  tardy  home,  was  late  in  dress- 
ing and  late  in  setting  forth.  Cora  was  indignant 
to  the  boiling-point.  She  meant  to  be  behind- 
hand at  the  reception,  as  a  display  of  what  she 
deemed  good  form  ;  but  a  dinner  was  a  dinner,  as 
her  husband,  in  the  privacy  of  the  carriage,  was 
taught  past  all  forgetting.  Yet  his  fault  lost  its 
gravity  before  Mrs.  Van  Dam's  welcome. 

"  If  you're  really  late,  I'm  delighted,"  she 
returned  to  Cora's  embarrassed  excuses  ;  "  for  you 
see,  I've  just  found  that  I  must  apologize  for  a 


THE    HENCHMAN  307 

delay  myself.  What  a  boon  servants  run  by 
clockwork  would  be  !  But  it  won't  be  very  long." 

It  was  long,  though  neither  of  the  guests  sus- 
pected it.  Shelby  was  diverted  by  Mrs.  Van 
Dam's  unimagined  vivacity  ;  while  his  wife  had  no 
immediate  room  for  any  impression  save  satisfac- 
tion that  this  autocrat,  who  held  that  punctuality 
should  be  the  politeness  of  democracy  no  less 
than  princes,  had  been  caught  napping.  It  was 
clear  that  she  meant  to  bury  the  hatchet,  and 
Cora,  with  her  own  point  carried,  saw  no  reason 
why  she  should  not  add  a  shovelful  of  symbolic 
earth  herself.  Thus,  beginning  with  a  trickle, 
the  flow  of  her  good  humor  presently  broadened 
to  the  width  of  the  sluice-gate,  as  she  entered 
upon  an  absorbing  scrutiny  of  the  quaint  old 
house  which  by  tradition  had  served  one  of  the 
earlier  governors.  It  was  a  rambling  structure 
of  unexpected  turns  and  endless  alcoves  stored 
with  curios,  art  treasures,  and  trophies  of  travel. 

Perceiving  their  interest  in  their  surroundings, 
Mrs.  Van  Dam  gladly  played  the  cicerone. 

"  That  chair  and  desk  came  from  the  Senate 
Chamber  of  the  old  State  House,"  she  said,  fol- 
lowing Shelby's  eyes.  "  They  were  used  by  my 
grandfather,  and  I  luckily  got  them  at  the  demoli- 
tion. His  wooden  inkstand  and  pounce-box  are 


3o8  THE    HENCHMAN 

there  too.  That  Stuart  over  the  mantelpiece  is 
his  portrait." 

"  I've  heard  of  him,"  answered  Shelby,  warmly. 
"  He  upheld  De  Witt  Clinton's  hands  in  the  fight 
for  the  canal." 

She  left  him  momentarily  to  give  Cora  the 
history  of  a  faded  Flemish  tapestry  that  lay  in 
a  cabinet,  and  then  included  them  both  in  the 
romantic  tale  of  a  Murillo,  unearthed  in  a  Mexi- 
can pawnshop,  which  she  assumed  would  interest 
so  steadfast  a  champion  of  art  as  the  governor 
had  shown  himself  in  his  congressional  career. 
Cora  basked  in  the  exquisite  flattery  of  being 
treated  as  a  person  of  greater  cultivation  than  she 
was,  and  strained  on  tiptoe  to  merit  her  reputa- 
tion. Had  her  mind  been  free  to  register  its 
ordinary  impressions,  two  things  might  have 
struck  her  as  singular ;  the  absence  of  other 
guests,  and,  stranger  still,  in  a  temple  of  punctu- 
ality, the  lack  of  clocks. 

The  same  happy  atmosphere  enveloped  the 
dinner  itself,  whose  perfection  of  service  and 
cookery  betrayed  no  hint  of  delay.  Mrs.  Shelby 
found  her  views  of  life  and  the  sphere  of  woman 
sought  for  and  appreciated,  and  the  governor 
was  enticed  into  political  by-paths  illustrated  by 
Tuscarora  stories  told  in  his  happiest  vein.  He 


THE    HENCHMAN  309 

was  frankly  charmed.  Many  women  had  at- 
tracted him  in  many  ways,  ranging  from  the 
earthy  fascination  of  the  sometime  Mrs.  Milliard 
to  that  commingling  of  girlish  impulse,  mature 
good  sense,  and  an  indefinite  something  else  in 
Ruth  which  swayed  him  still ;  but  none  of  them 
had  met  him  on  quite  the  serene  plane  of  this 
delightful  old  woman  of  the  world.  By  her 
birthright  she  seemed  to  bridge  the  present  and 
the  past,  and  under  her  spell  the  quaint-gabled 
Albany  of  another  century  rose  again.  Once 
more  Arcadian  youth  picnicked  in  the  "bush'' 
and  coasted  down  Pinkster  Hill  past  the  squat 
Dutch  church ;  the  Tontine  Coffee  House  sprang 
from  dust,  and  through  its  doors  walked  Hamil- 
ton and  Burr,  Jerome  Bonaparte,  and  a  comic- 
pathetic  emigre  marquis,  who  in  poverty  awaited 
the  greater  Bonaparte's  downfall,  cherishing  his 
order  of  Saint  Louis  and  powdering  his  poll  with 
Indian  meal ;  the  Livingstons  and  Clintons 
divided  the  land  between  them ;  Van  Buren  and 
the  Regency  came  to  power. 

There  was  more  of  this  when  the  dinner  had 
ended,  and  they  lingered  in  the  library  over  their 
coffee  and  Mrs.  Van  Dam's  priceless  collection 
of  relics  of  the  time  of  the  royal  province  and  the 
yet  earlier  New  Netherland. 


3 io  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  A  plague  on  the  reception  !  "  exclaimed  the 
governor  in  the  carriage,  when  the  good  nights 
had  finally  been  said.  "  I  could  have  talked 
with  her  till  morning." 

There  was  a  lively  stir  and  bustle  about  the 
entrance  of  the  Beverwyck  Club  as  they  ap- 
proached, which  Cora  took  to  be  that  of  late- 
comers like  themselves.  She  would  have  preferred 
that  she  be  conspicuously  the  last,  —  the  climax. 
Seen  nearer,  the  flurry  was  peculiar.  If  the  idea 
were  not  preposterous,  she  could  believe  that 
people  were  actually  leaving  the  club  —  leaving 
before  they  met  the  governor  in  whose  honor 
they  assembled  —  leaving  before  she  came  ! 

"  Your  watch,  Ross,  your  watch,"  she  exclaimed 
suddenly. 

"  I  did  not  wear  it." 

She  bethought  her  of  a  recently  acquired  car- 
riage clock  whose  face  the  lights  of  a  passing 
trolley  made  plain.  She  looked,  gasped,  and 
looked  again  in  horrid  fascination.  The  punctili- 
ous Beverwyck  Club  had  decreed  that  its  recep- 
tion should  end  at  eleven,  and  the  decrees  of  the 
Beverwyck  Ciub  were  rigidly  enforced.  The 
carriage  clock  pointed  its  inexorable  hands  to 
a  quarter  past. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THENCEFORTH  Cora  Shelby's  respect  for  the 
fearless  strategist  in  Quality  Row  verged  upon 
awe.  If  Mrs.  Teunis  Van  Dam  now  deigned 
to  assist  at  one  of  the  weekly  house-openings, 
the  occasion  savored  of  an  aroma  which  the 
united  patronage  of  Mrs.  Tommy  Kidder  and 
the  ladies  of  the  lieutenant-governor,  the  secre- 
tary of  state,  the  controller,  the  treasurer,  and 
the  entire  bench  of  the  Court  of  Appeals  could 
not  exhale.  Cora  made  sure  of  her  good  offices 
for  the  legislative  reception  weeks  in  advance, 
and  in  all  matters,  save  only  Handsome  Ludlow, 
deferred  anxiously  to  the  great  exemplar's  code. 

No  one  who  thought  twice  about  Mrs.  Van 
Dam  escaped  the  reflection  that  she  was  a  de- 
scendant, and  Cora  with  her  mind  running  con- 
tinually on  this  shoot  of  a  peculiarly  sightly 
family  tree,  was  as  fired  by  this  truism  of  natural 
law  as  if  it  had  lain  all  the  centuries  awaiting  her 
discovery.  Those  delightful  magicians  of  figures, 
who  as  easy  as  asking  prove  William  the  Con- 

3" 


3i2  THE    HENCHMAN 

queror  the  mathematical  begetter  of  us  all,  had 
hitherto  contented  her ;  but  such  sweets  cloyed 
before  Mrs.  Van  Dam's  august  line  of  Dutch  and 
English  forebears,  who  had  considerately  made 
history  and  bequeathed  portraits  and  plate.  But 
the  path  of  Japhet  in  search  of  a  father  was  prim- 
rose beside  the  American's  in  search  of  an  ances- 
tor, and  Cora's  researches  were  long  barren  of 
result.  The  labyrinth  of  Brown,  her  maiden 
name,  she  speedily  forsook,  though  at  the  outset 
it  seemed  to  run  promisingly  to  knighthood, 
literature,  and  art ;  Huggins,  her  mother's  name, 
was  impossible,  and  Milliard,  more  sounding, 
clearly  out  of  the  question ;  while  the  Shelbys, 
to  whom  she  turned  in  last  resort,  seemed  hope- 
lessly commonplace.  Ross's  father,  to  her  own 
knowledge,  had  done  little  but  drink ;  and  the 
grandfather,  though  of  sterner  stuff,  as  became 
a  pioneer,  was  handicapped  by  his  unlucky  dis- 
tillery. The  governor's  own  notions  about  his 
family  were  the  vaguest.  Like  many  Americans, 
he  had  the  impression  that  its  beginnings  traced 
to  two  brothers  who  immigrated  to  this  country 
prior  to  the  Revolution  in  which  they  served. 

"  The  Revolution  seems  to  be  the  Norman 
Conquest  of  American  genealogy,"  he  remarked 
in  the  course  of  his  wife's  cross-examination. 


THE    HENCHMAN  313 

"  But  don't  you  know  their  names,  or  what 
they  did  in  the  war  ?  "  she  queried  anxiously. 

Shelby  shook  his  head. 

"  Perhaps  they  were  teamsters,"  he  laughed. 

Cora  was  too  pained  to  jest.  Mrs.  Van  Dam 
was  a  "  daughter "  of  this  and  that  society  by 
virtue  of  descent  from  generals. 

For  a  time  the  chase  now  circled  teasingly 
round  a  southern  branch  whose  achievements 
were  notable,  but  the  unconcern  of  the  distiller 
with  regard  to  vital  statistics  balked  a  happy 
union  of  North  and  South,  and  goaded  Cora  to 
that  last  desperate  ditch  of  the  ancestor-hunter  — 
a  blind  leap  over  seas.  In  the  fortunate  isles 
where  choice  forefathers  flourish  thick  as  butter- 
cups, Cora  made  her  foray  with  hunger's  law- 
less haste,  enlisted  the  aid  of  an  indigent  person 
skilled  in  blazonry,  and  in  good  season  brought 
her  spoils  to  the  governor. 

"  I've  had  bother  enough  getting  this,"  she 
said,  exhibiting  a  coat  of  arms ;  "  but  I  must  say 
it's  far  prettier  than  the  one  we  saw  in  Mrs. 
Van  Dam's  library." 

"Runs  mainly  to  red,  doesn't  it?"  Shelby 
ventured,  gravely  considering  the  work. 

"  That's  gules,"  explained  Cora,  learnedly ; 
"  the  color  of  the  field.  Books  of  heraldry 


3 14  THE    HENCHMAN 

describe  the  arms  as :  f  Gules,  two  boars'  heads 
displayed  in  chief  and  a  mullet  in  base,  sable ; 
crest,  a  dexter  arm,  embowed,  grasping  a 
cimeter  — 

"  I  took  that  for  a  crumb-scraper,"  put  in 
the  governor,  jocularly. 

"  The  motto,"  went  on  Cora,  soberly,  "  is,  l  I 
achieve.'  I  think  the  purple  of  the  mantling 
highly  effective  —  purpure,  that's  called  —  which, 
taken  with  the  red  and  black,  would  give  a  most 
romantic  light  to  our  hall  in  New  Babylon  if  we 
put  a  window  at  the  turn  of  the  stair.  To- 
morrow morning  I  shall  order  a  die  made  for 
my  stationery." 

"  So  this  is  ours,"  said  Shelby.  "  Did  the 
original  owner  acquire  it  in  the  Holy  Wars,  or 
was  he  a  rich  brewer  who  endowed  a  hospital  ?  " 

Cora  reddened. 

"  He  was  Owen  Shelby,  a  Welsh  soldier  of 
the  Commonwealth." 

"  A  near  relation  of  mine  ?  " 

"You  are  undoubtedly  his  descendant.  Of 
course  I  can't  supply  every  trifling  link  —  your 
people  were  so  careless  of  their  records ;  but 
there  is  no  question  in  my  mind  that  you  are 
entitled  to  his  arms,  and  you  ought  to  be  grateful 
to  me  for  my  pains." 


THE   HENCHMAN  315 

"  I  am,  I  am,"  protested  Shelby,  with  a  chuckle. 
"  But  before  the  engraver  begins  work  on  the 
crumb-scraper  and  the  prize  pigs  let  me  suggest 
that  you  add  a  detail  which  has  been  overlooked. 
I  mean  a  bar  sinister." 

"  Ross ! " 

He  slipped  his  arm  round  her  waist  with  a 
laugh. 

"  One  of  the  state  library  people  said  that 
you  were  trailing  the  foreign  Shelbys,  and  I 
glanced  at  your  references.  The  fact  I  remember 
best  is  that  Owen  Shelby,  late  of  Cromwell's  Iron- 
sides, died  a  bachelor." 

She  flung  from  him  in  stormy  anger. 

"  I've  twice  been  fool  enough,"  she  flashed, 
"  to  marry  a  man  unable  to  appreciate  me." 

He  winced.  The  reproach,  more  wanton  than 
any  she  had  ever  framed,  lashed  him  on  the  raw. 
The  manner  of  his  succession  to  Joe  Milliard's 
shoes  had  fostered  an  almost  morbid  solicitude 
for  her  well  being  which  had  not  seldom  over- 
topped his  better  judgment.  If  he  had  failed 
of  his  duty,  it  was  not  for  lack  of  striving. 

"  I've  tried,  Cora,"  he  answered  bitterly. 

Neither  broached  a  formal  reconciliation  — 
such  crude  devices  fell  into  disuse  early  in  their 
marriage ;  but  the  man  gave  her  social  hours 


316  THE    HENCHMAN 

he  could  ill  afford  in  the  press  of  the  closing 
session,  and  presently  a  tremendous  event  from 
the  outside  patched,  if  it  could  not  heal,  the 
breach.  This  was  nothing  less  than  the  launch- 
ing of  Shelby's  presidential  boom. 

Three  factors  contributed  to  this  movement : 
the  return  of  prosperity,  the  governor's  person- 
ality, and  the  Boss.  Shelby  won  his  election 
in  a  midnight  of  universal  hard  times ;  his  in- 
auguration saw  the  dawn ;  the  legislative  session 
closed  amidst  a  sunrise  of  splendid  promise.  By 
the  deathless  fallacy  which  credits  or  blames  the 
ruling  powers  for  everything,  natural  or  super- 
natural, Shelby's  party  reaped  abundantly  where 
it  had  sown  with  niggard  hand.  The  governor's 
personal  deserts  were  more  solid,  the  public 
recognizing  his  retarding  ratchet  as  the  cause  of 
the  machine's  continence  and  the  lowered  tax- 
rate.  Apparently  the  Legislature  bore  him  no 
ill  will  for  his  curbing  hand.  A  quiet  word  had 
issued  from  the  Boss  that  the  governor's  vetoes 
must  stand,  and  Shelby's  one  pet  measure,  the 
appointment  of  a  commission  to  deal  with  the 
improvement  of  the  canals,  had  passed  both 
Houses  by  a  vote  which  was  almost  non-partisan. 
A  spontaneous  demand  seemed  to  well  from  the 
people  that  this  faithful  steward  be  sent  higher. 


THE    HENCHMAN  317 

But  Shelby  knew  something  of  the  rearing 
of  that  tenderest  of  plants  in  the  political  garden 
—  the  spontaneous  demand.  In  the  voice  of 
the  people  he  had  so  often  read  the  will  of  the 
Boss.  The  inspired  laudations  of  country  editors, 
the  resulting  echoes  in  the  city  press,  the  inter- 
views with  the  knowing  ones  who  withheld  their 
names,  the  genuine  momentum  lent  by  the  easily 
impressed  —  all  the  covert  workings  of  spon- 
taneity were  known  to  him  from  the  days  of 
apprenticeship  at  the  Boss's  feet.  The  method 
was  transparent,  the  motive  only  was  hazy ;  yet 
he  divined  the  motive  itself  with  sufficient  ac- 
curacy. The  Boss  thought  he  knew  too  much. 
It  is  well  to  make  your  own  governor,  but  to 
make  him  too  well  is  ill.  It  was  this  one's 
drawback  that  he  had  passed  the  No  Admittance 
sign  of  the  workshop  and  got  the  trade  secrets 
of  the  boss  business  at  his  finger  ends.  The 
pupil  smiled  sometimes  when  he  recalled  the 
first  great  rencounter  with  the  master.  The  birch 
and  frown  no  longer  terrified.  Evidently  the 
Boss  knew  this,  and  failing  the  birch,  dangled 
a  prize. 

What  Shelby  did  not  divine  was  the  incentive 
force  of  pique.  While  the  leader  gave  his  smiling 
interviews  to  the  reporters  on  the  subject  of  the 


3i8  THE    HENCHMAN 

governor's  vetoes,  he  had  too  often  had  to  dis- 
semble that  his  earliest  information  came  from 
them.  He  did  not  resent  the  vetoes,  if  they 
made  party  capital ;  nor  did  he  resent  Shelby's 
popularity,  for  he  liked  him.  The  bitterness  of  the 
cup  was  that  the  ingrate  took,  no  pains  to  inquire 
whether  he  cared  or  not.  It  is  true  that  in  large 
questions  Shelby  had  uniformly  sought  his  coun- 
sel, and  the  session  had  been  fairly  prolific  in  legis- 
lation redounding  to  the  party  credit ;  but  the 
governor's  independence  in  the  lesser  matters 
attainted  his  loyalty.  What  the  one  man  con- 
sidered upholding  the  dignity  of  his  office,  the 
other  interpreted  as  leze-majesty. 

Shelby's  attitude  toward  the  presidential  chit- 
chat was  frankly  human.  Too  modest  to  measure 
himself  beside  the  greater  successors  of  Washing- 
ton, he  yet  knew  himself  to  be  as  well  equipped 
as  many  who  had  held  the  office ;  and,  without 
troubling  his  sleep,  determined  that  should  the 
boss-made  boom  attain  genuine  popularity,  it 
might  drift  where  it  would  without  hindrance 
from  him.  Precisely  this  occurred.  The  gov- 
ernor's practicality  smoothed  the  way  to  his 
indorsement  by  men  whose  foremost  interest 
was  business  rather  than  politics,  and  a  banquet 
given  him  late  in  April  by  a  great  commercial 


THE    HENCHMAN  319 

organization  of  New  York,  which  approved  his 
policy  of  letting  the  city  mind  its  own  affairs,  set 
him  definitely  in  the  race. 

Throned  in  a  gallery  above  the  diners  ;  courted 
by  heroines  of  by-gone  horse  shows,  the  hem  of 
whose  garments  she  had  never  dreamed  to  touch ; 
with  the  White  House  looming  mistily  through 
the  sheen  of  silver  and  crystal  and  napery  under 
tinted  lights,  Cora  viewed  the  taking  spectacle 
as  a  personal  apotheosis.  A  silly  periodical  for 
"  ladies  "  had  recently  printed  an  article  about  her 
which  ascribed  Shelby's  making  to  herself,  and 
she,  in  this  rosy  hour  believing,  looked  upon  her 
handiwork,  and  saw  that  it  was  tolerably  good. 
Statesmen,  diplomats,  captains  of  industry,  the 
smiling  Boss  —  a  very  parliament  of  brains  —  did 
the  governor  honor,  and  the  most  famous  after- 
dinner  speaker  in  the  land  proclaimed  him  New 
York's  favorite  son. 

To  most  of  his  listeners  Shelby's  reply  seemed 
admirable.  A  morning  paper  called  it  "  a  little 
classic  of  straightforwardness  "• ;  but  his  king- 
maker aloft  thought  his  bearing  too  simple  by 
far.  If  he  listened  to  her,  he  would  tip  his  presi- 
dential lightning-rod  more  showily. 


CHAPTER  V 

SUMMER  leaped  a  hotbed  growth  from  spring, 
and  Cora  Shelby,  tiring  of  golf,  the  country  club, 
and  Albany's  now  mild  pastimes,  took  herself  off 
for  a  round  of  fashionable  resorts  with  Mrs. 
Tommy  Kidder.  The  governor  had  other  occu- 
pations. So  far  as  a  man  could  do  such  a  thing, 
he  put  his  presidential  chances  out  of  mind  and 
bent  his  energies  upon  a  study  of  the  canal  prob- 
lem, whose  solving  he  was  ambitious  to  make  the 
monument  of  his  administration.  As  a  legislator 
he  had  been  recognized  as  an  authority  upon  this 
his  hobby ;  but  the  knowledge  of  the  assemblyman 
was  shallow  beside  that  of  the  governor,  who  asked 
no  fairer  laurel  than  to  link  his  name  with  the 
regenerated  Erie  Canal  as  the  second  Clinton  had 
associated  his  name  with  its  beginnings. 

Throughout  the  languid  heated  term  whose 
official  calm  only  the  occasional  request  of  a  fellow 
governor  for  requisition  papers  disturbed,  Shelby 
plodded  over  the  bewildered  mass  of  estimates, 
maps,  and  mazy  statistics  which  his  special  com- 

320 


THE   HENCHMAN  321 

mittee  was  accumulating.  A  more  brilliant  man 
doubtless  would  have  left  much  of  this  arid 
drudgery  to  subordinates,  contenting  himself  with 
the  sum  of  things,  without  a  close  scrutiny  of 
detail ;  but  this  was  never  Shelby's  way.  When 
he  mastered  a  subject  it  was  his  blood  and  bones, 
and  his  passion  for  the  Ditch  transmuted  its  story, 
howsoever  told,  into  stuff  that  splendid  dreams 
are  made  on  and  modern  empires  built. 

Those  arduous  months  were  the  happiest  he 
had  known.  He  toiled  mightily,  but  he  wrought 
at  a  labor  of  love,  while  his  leisure  hours  fostered 
friendships  as  novel  as  they  were  attractive.  Cora 
Shelby's  campaign  of  the  watering-places  had  not 
embraced  Milicent,  and  the  girl  returned  from 
school  in  June  to  find  her  mother  already  gone. 
She  dutifully  made  known  her  arrival  in  Albany, 
and  in  time  deciphered  from  a  patchouli-scented 
scrawl  postmarked  "  Bar  Harbor "  that  Albany 
was  an  excellent  spot  for  her  to  remain. 

"  She  says  that  summer  hotels  are  no  places 
for  young  girls,"  Milicent  told  her  stepfather. 
"  Why  then  does  mamma  care  about  them  ?  " 

The  governor  was  nonplussed  :  but  he  quietly 
set  himself  to  make  Albany  tolerable  for  this 
astonishing  young  person,  yet  scant  of  seventeen, 
who  had  suddenly  flowered  into  the  outward 


322  THE   HENCHMAN 

semblance  of  a  woman.  He  devised  excursions 
on  the  river  and  pilgrimages  to  historic  spots 
about  the  city  and  the  countryside,  acquiring 
strange  antiquarian  lore  of  the  Schuyler  house, 
the  Van  Rensselaer  mansion,  and  the  Vanderhey- 
den  Palace,  and,  more  curious  still,  a  perception 
of  his  deep  capacity  for  affection.  This  child  of  the 
Milliards'  better  selves,  with  her  father's  frank- 
ness, her  mother's  earlier  beauty,  and  with  a  win- 
someness  all  her  own,  awoke  his  slumbering 
instinct  of  fatherhood. 

The  wholesome  new  relation  quickened  his 
insight  amazingly.  He  divined  that  however 
much  the  girl  might  care  for  these  wayside  ram- 
bles with  him,  her  youth  must  still  crave  youth, 
and  in  this  strait  he  turned  to  Mrs.  Van  Dam, 
who  forthwith  became  Milicent's  captive,  too,  and 
a  fairy  godmother  into  the  bargain.  So  Shelby 
came  much  to  frequent  a  vine-screened  upper 
veranda  off  Mrs.  Van  Dam's  library,  where  she 
was  fond  of  serving  coffee  after  dinner,  and  one 
could  dip  down  over  the  red  roofs  and  tree-tops 
to  the  stripling  Hudson  changing  its  coat  of  many 
colors  in  the  sunset.  As  this  corner  was  a  haunt 
of  Canon  North's,  also,  it  fell  out  that  a  friendship 
sprang  up  between  the  men  which  strengthened 
into  intimacy.  Shelby  had  never  dreamed  of 


THE    HENCHMAN  323 

making  friends  with  a  clergyman.  The  sectarian 
college  had  put  him  out  of  joint  with  priestery. 
But  North  was  in  a  class  by  himself.  He  had  no 
sacerdotal  air  or  jargon  —  that  negative  virtue  was 
his  earliest  passport ;  and  he  was  from  crown  to 
sole  a  robust  manly  man.  The  governor  took 
to  dropping  into  the  canon's  book-lined  study 
near  the  cathedral  after  office  hours,  and  North 
would  come  to  the  executive  mansion  and  smoke 
half  the  night  away  ;  for  the  canon  was  a  judge  of 
tobacco  no  less  than  men.  Not  once  in  their  in- 
tercourse did  he  mention  church-going  or  creeds ; 
he  did  not  "  talk  religion."  Yet,  whatever  the 
canon's  religion  was,  Shelby  was  aware  that  he 
lived  it.  The  air  was  full  of  little  stories  of  his 
helpfulness  of  the  sort  people  told  of  a  man 
North  once  alluded  to  as  "  Saint "  Phillips 
Brooks. 

Milicent  went  to  the  Catskills  late  in  August 
as  the  guest  of  a  school  friend,  and  after  a  day  or 
two  of  novel  loneliness,  the  governor  decided  to 
carry  out  a  recently  formed  plan  for  supplement- 
ing the  work  of  his  committee  with  a  personal 
inspection  of  a  part  of  the  canal  system.  As  it 
seemed  to  him  that  he  could  get  at  the  best 
results  by  quiet  means,  his  journey  was  presented 
to  the  press  in  the  light  of  a  business  trip  to  his 


324  THE   HENCHMAN 

old  home.  For  forty-eight  hours  his  leisurely 
progress  with  his  private  secretary  escaped  remark. 
Then  the  newspapers  upset  his  apple-cart.  Shelby 
had  become  too  interesting  a  figure  for  the  role 
of  Haroun-al-Raschid,  and  the  paragraphers  rang 
astonishing  changes  on  his  adventures  at  the  few 
points  where  he  had  succeeded  in  making  observa- 
tions unrecognized.  What  he  saw  thereafter  was 
accompanied  by  the  click  of  cameras  and  the 
fatuity  of  local  bigwigs  brimming  with  eagerness 
to  tie  their  fortunes  to  the  car  of  the  coming 
man. 

At  New  Babylon,  where  he  became  the  guest 
of  the  Hon.  Seneca  Bowers,  the  minute  espionage 
upon  his  doings  ceased,  and  Shelby  felt  less  a 
personage  than  at  any  time  since  his  inauguration. 
The  town  was  proud  of  him,  but  too  faithful  to 
its  ancestral  reserve  to  tell  him  so.  People  who 
had  called  him  "  Ross  "  all  his  days  addressed 
him  in  this  fashion  still ;  and  the  Widow  Weather- 
wax  calmly  imposed  an  audience  in  the  matter  of 
her  last  will  and  testament,  which  the  new-fledged 
lawyer,  William  Irons,  had  bungled,  and  spiced 
the  renewal  of  their  relations  with  her  old-time 
candor  and  a  full  chronicle  of  the  past,  present, 
and  probable  scandal  of  the  county.  In  little 
ways,  however,  the  governor  perceived  what 


THE    HENCHMAN  325 

close-mouthed  Tuscarora  really  felt.  They  had 
hung  a  crayon  portrait  of  him  in  the  court-house, 
and  the  Pioneer  Association,  which  was  about  to 
hold  its  annual  picnic  beside  Ontario,  asked  him 
to  deliver  the  address. 

Shelby  accepted  the  invitation,  and,  saturated 
as  he  was  with  the  homespun  history  of  his 
county,  excelled  himself.  But  he  did  something 
more  than  retell  a  familiar  tale.  A  product  of 
this  life,  he  nevertheless  saw  it  from  the  outside 
and  in  its  wide  relations,  and  the  canal-begotten 
civilization,  which  was  his  immediate  theme,  led 
irresistibly  to  the  vast  economic  problem  that  lay 
near  his  heart,  and  to  a  suddenly  formulated  plan 
for  its  solution.  By  one  of  those  inspirations  of 
the  moment  which  public  speakers  know,  yet  dare 
not  count  upon,  the  vexing  details  of  his  sum- 
mer's drudgery  shifted  and  rearranged  themselves 
into  a  coherent  pattern  and  policy  whose  fulfil- 
ment should  place  the  historic  waterway,  not 
merely  abreast  of  the  age,  but  bulwarked  for  the 
future.  It  was  a  significant  utterance  which  car- 
ried far.  Shelby  could  give  no  copies  of  his 
speech  to  the  press,  since  the  speech  had  largely 
shaped  itself  in  the  making ;  but  the  correspond- 
ents who  covered  what  had  promised  to  be  a 
purely  bucolic  assignment,  were  not  slow  in  seeing 


326  THE    HENCHMAN 

their  error  and  retrieving  it.  What  the  Tuscarora 
pioneers  and  their  descendants  heard,  the  whole 
state  read ;  and  the  discerning  perceived  that, 
wherever  the  party,  the  party  machine,  or  the 
party  boss  might  stand,  the  governor  had  scaled 
the  high  plateau  of  statesmanship,  where  public 
opinion  is  less  catered  to  than  led. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  Shelby  shook  the  last 
brown  hand  in  the  serpentine  line  of  country 
people  which  coiled  in  and  out  the  stuffy  parlor 
of  the  Lakeview  Inn,  and  cutting  loose  from  the 
reception  committee  under  cover  of  a  headache, 
slipped  away  into  the  trees.  The  fringe  of  the 
wood  was  defaced  with  the  litter  of  picnickers,  and 
smelt  of  lunch  ;  the  din  of  the  agents  for  new- 
fangled reapers  and  ploughs,  whose  gaudy  paint 
was  doubly  garish  against  the  sober  background, 
had  routed  the  squirrels  and  birds ;  but  the 
remoter  paths  held  only  silent  lovers,  and  the 
camp-ground,  where  the  Widow  Weatherwax  had 
mouthed  and  played  the  prophet,  stripped  of  its 
tents,  its  zealots,  its  wavering  torchlights,  was  full 
of  wholesome  sunlight  and  forest  peace. 

The  spot  stirred  ghosts,  and  the  governor 
turned  to  the  murmuring  shore  with  its  gentle 
mimicry  of  ocean.  Half  sheltered  by  a  clump  of 
sumach  sat  a  woman  upon  a  bit  of  driftwood  and 


THE    HENCHMAN  327 

flung  pebbles  in  the  lake.  He  stared,  and  then 
went  slowly  down  to  her. 

"  Ruth,"  he  said,  "  you  here  !  " 

"  Your  Excellency  startled  me." 

Her  banter  puzzled  him,  but  the  handclasp  was 
warm. 

"  Forget  my  office,"  he  petitioned. 

"  After  your  tremendous  speech  to-day  ?  You 
were  his  Excellency  the  governor  of  New  York 
with  that,  and  I  was  properly  impressed.  It 
struck  me  that  you  would  make  a  benevolent 
czar." 

"  Are  you  mocking  me  ?  " 

"  God  forbid,  your  Excellency  !  " 

"  I'd  rather  be  plain  Shelby,"  he  said,  studying 
her  profile.  "  I'm  glad  you  heard  me  —  glad  that 
you  liked  it.  It  was  sincere,  and  you  value  sin- 
cerity. But  I  had  no  notion  that  you  were  listen- 
ing. I  supposed  you  somewhere  with  the 
fashionables." 

"  I  reached  home  yesterday,  and  came  at  once 
to  my  lake  cottage.  I  heard  that  you  were  to 
speak,  and  braved  the  picnic  to  hear  you.  I  trust 
you  appreciate  the  sacrifice." 

"  And  —  your  husband  ?     Is  he  here  too  ?  " 

Ruth  flung  a  pebble. 

"  I  believe  he's  addressing  a  woman    suffrage 


328  THE    HENCHMAN 

convention  in  Chicago  to-day."  She  gave  him 
a  lazy  glance.  "And  Mrs.  Shelby  —  is  she 
here  ? " 

"  She's  in  Saratoga,  I  believe." 

"  Belief  again  ?  We  really  ought  to  read  the 
papers." 

He  tried  to  search  her  face,  but  the  pebble- 
throwing  prevented.  The  Widow  Weatherwax 
had  expatiated  on  the  topic  of  Mrs.  Bernard 
Graves's  unhappiness,  with  tedious  variations  on 
the  saw  about  marrying  in  haste  to  repent  at  lei- 
sure. He  wondered  —  he  scarce  knew  what.  She 
drew  him  with  all  the  old  attraction,  but  an  elu- 
sive something  had  vanished.  He  guessed  that 
it  was  the  essence  of  youth,  though  the  form 
lingered. 

"  Are  you  happy,  Ruth  ?  "  he  asked  abruptly. 

She  looked  him  in  the  eyes,  and  laughed. 

"  That  reminds  me  of  your  unofficial  self,"  she 
said.  "  You  never  could  invent  small  talk  for 
the  feminine  mind." 

"You  were  never  the  kind  of  woman  who 
wanted  it." 

"  I  better  appreciate  its  uses  nowadays.  It 
conceals  either  the  absence  or  presence  of  thought. 
Bless  me  !  there's  an  epigram.  But  I'm  afraid  it's 
merely  an  echo  of  Voltaire." 


THE    HENCHMAN 


329 


He  was  not  listening.  A  midsummer  mad- 
ness rioted  in  his  brain. 

"  But  are  you  happy  ?  " 

"  Small  talk,  small  talk,"  she  insisted.  "  See 
how  that  yacht's  sails  take  the  sun.  Isn't  the 
water  a  splendid  sapphire  ?  Do  you  like  to  fish  ? 
Do  you  prefer  Tennyson  or  Browning  ?  Mere- 
dith or  Hardy  ?  Isn't  it  warm  ?  Isn't  it  cool  ?  " 

"  But  are  you  ?  " 

She  rose  and  faced  him  with  strange  eyes. 

"  What  do  you  want  ?  " 

"  Want,"  he  repeated  mechanically,  rising  too. 

"  Why  have  you  come  here  in  your  pomp  of 
governorship  and  promise  of  greater  things  to 
harass  me  ? " 

"  Harass  you,  Ruth  !     If  you  knew  —  " 

"Know?  I  know  too  much.  I'm  unlearning 
things  now.  That's  the  key  to  happiness  —  for- 
getting. And  here  come  you,  as  you  used  to 
come,  an  untamed,  masterful  force  —  that's  what 
you  are,  a  force  !  —  and  instead  of  forgetting  you 
ask  me  to  remember.  What  is  it  you're  really 
seeking  in  this  probing  of  my  happiness  ?  What 
must  you  be  told  ?  " 

"  Nothing."  With  the  revelation  of  the  flaw 
in  her  armor  he  conquered  self.  "  I  know  — 
God  help  me  !  —  I  know." 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  Boss  questioned  the  wisdom  of  the  Tus- 
carora  speech,  and  the  fall  widened  the  unacknowl- 
edged breach  between  him  and  the  governor. 
The  September  primaries  had  assured  the  leader 
a  firmer  control  of  the  state  convention  than  he 
had  ever  exercised,  and  it  was  well  understood  to 
be  his,  and  his  alone,  made  to  his  order,  and  the 
docile  register  'of  his  will.  That  this  victory 
clinched  his  ownership  of  the  delegation  to  the 
national  convention  of  next  year  was  self-evident ; 
and  that  a  presidential  candidate  with  New  York's 
backing  would  attract  allies  from  several  eastern 
and  at  least  two  southern  boss-ruled  states,  was 
well  warranted  by  the  tale  of  the  great  politician's 
excursions  into  national  affairs  in  the  recent  past. 
By  implication  of  the  April  banquet  the  leader's 
personal  choice,  Shelby,  had  therefore  no  trivial 
chance  of  capturing  the  nomination ;  and  in  the 
Boss's  opinion  the  favored  pawn  owed  a  decent 
deference  to  the  master  chess-player.  So  Shelby 
thought,  too ;  but  they  split  over  definition  of 
terms  in  the  same  old  way. 

33° 


THE    HENCHMAN  331 

"  You  juggled  millions  like  a  Napoleon  of 
Finance,"  complained  the  Boss  at  a  breakfast  for 
two  shortly  after  the  state  convention.  "  Is  that 
the  kind  of  talk  for  people  just  recovering  from 
hard  times  ? " 

His  tone  chafed  the  governor. 

"  It's  the  kind  of  talk  for  a  proper  handling  of 
the  canal  problem,"  he  retorted  crisply.  "  The 
canal  has  been  the  prey  of  peanut  politics  too 
long." 

"The  speech  was  ill-advised  —  ill-advised," 
persisted  the  Boss,  irritably.  "You  should  have 
consulted  somebody." 

Shelby  provoked  him  with  a  smile. 

"  That  was  my  idea,  precisely,"  he  returned. 
"  I  thought  I'd  consult  the  people." 

A  difference  springing  from  the  November 
elections  strained  their  relations  farther,  and  goaded 
Shelby's  patience  to  its  utmost  reach.  Although 
they  favored  the  organization  as  a  whole,  the 
elections  wrought  certain  damaging  changes  in 
detail,  one  of  which  involved  the  fortunes  of 
Handsome  Ludlow.  Early  in  his  term  the  gov- 
ernor had  appointed  the  man  to  a  temporary 
commission,  at  the  urgent  plea  of  the  Boss,  who 
painted  the  ex-senator  in  the  light  of  a  faithful 
soldier  haply  fallen  outside  the  breastworks  by 


332  THE    HENCHMAN 

reason  of  the  ingratitude  of  a  fickle  city  constitu- 
ency. Ludlow  had  regularly  drawn  a  salary, 
which  his  subordinates  earned,  and  divided  his 
abundant  leisure  between  the  diversions  peculiar 
to  Mrs.  Tommy  Kidder's  coterie  and  schemes  for 
the  recovery  of  his  senatorial  seat.  In  the  latter 
business  he  met  with  a  defeat  more  telling  than 
he  had  yet  experienced.  But  Ludlow  was  an 
office-seeker  of  resource.  Through  a  channel 
which  he  did  not  disclose,  he  got  wind  of  a  judge- 
ship  whose  forthcoming  vacancy  was  known  to  the 
governor  and  those  in  his  confidence,  and  promptly 
undertook  a  still-hunt  for  the  place.  Presently 
his  name  came  to  Shelby  with  the  strong  recom- 
mendation of  the  Boss. 

The  governor  was  angry  to  the  core.  As  a 
lawyer  alone  he  recoiled  from  raising  even  tempo- 
rarily to  the  bench  a  man  whose  activities  had 
been  notoriously  political,  and  his  law  practice  in- 
nocent of  a  single  case  in  a  court  of  record ;  as  a 
husband  whose  ears  tingled  with  gossip  of  this 
same  Ludlow's  summer  attentions  to  his  wife, 
which  the  Boss,  whom  nothing  escaped,  must 
have  heard  too,  his  hurt  was  shrewder.  ^  His  re- 
fusal was  curt. 

The  Boss  met  the  governor's  move  with  silence, 
but  under  his  own  roof  Shelby  had  crossed  a  poli- 


THE    HENCHMAN 


333 


tician  less  self-contained.  Ludlow  owed  his  fore- 
knowledge of  the  judicial  vacancy  to  Cora,  who 
flew  in  high  dudgeon  to  her  husband  to  demand 
why  he  had  refused  this  favor  to  her  valued 
friend. 

Shelby  was  dumfounded. 

"  These  affairs  don't  concern  you,"  he  said, 
after  a  moment's  incredulous  scrutiny  of  her  face. 

"  Why  did  you  refuse  to  make  him  a  judge  ?  " 
she  repeated  hotly. 

"  Ludlow  is  a  discredited  political  hack.  I 
had  no  alternative." 

"  It's  jealousy." 

Shelby  whitened. 

"  If  you  mean  to  press  the  thing  into  that 
region,"  he  answered  sternly,  "  I'll  own  that 
there  is  an  element  of  jealousy.  I've  had  to 
open  my  eyes  lately  to  many  things  which  con- 
cern you  and  Ludlow.  Bar  Harbor  stories,  Sara- 
toga stories,  Albany  stories,  too,  of  things  you've 
kept  from  me  —  God  knows  what  hasn't  filtered 
my  way.  I  am  jealous — jealous  for  your  good 
name,  and  mine,  and  Milicent's." 

She  wept  at  that,  saying  that  he  misconstrued 
her  warm  sympathy  with  the  unfortunate ;  and 
he,  proof  against  anything  but  the  feminine  tear- 
gland,  as  she  knew,  protested  his  faith.  It  was 


334  THE    HENCHMAN 

near  his  lips  at  this  moment  to  beg  her  to  treat 
Ludlow  henceforth  with  mere  civility,  but  he  re- 
frained. When  he  broached  it  afterward  her  pli- 
ant mood  had  vanished. 

"  You  would  have  Albany  saying  that  you 
believe  its  tittle-tattle,"  she  argued ;  and  he  de- 
ferred for  the  hundredth  time  to  her  superior 
perception  of  the  mental  processes  of  the  social 
world. 

Till  the  Legislature  met  in  January,  the  gov- 
ernor was  absorbed  in  the  writing  of  his  annual 
message,  whose  recommendations  he  proposed  to 
devote  almost  exclusively  to  the  canals.  His 
committee  had  completed  its  work,  and  his  great 
plan  was  muscular  and  vertebrate  in  all  its  struc- 
ture, for  he  contemplated  a  far-reaching  system 
of  legislation  rather  than  a  simple  makeshift 
appropriation  of  the  out-worn  type  ;  and  the  ulti- 
mate goal  of  it  all  was  to  lift  the  politics-ridden 
waterway  out  of  politics  altogether.  Before  he 
gave  his  final  revision  to  the  printers,  he  sub- 
mitted a  proof  to  the  Boss,  who  returned  it  with 
the  comment  that  his  intellect  was  of  an  order 
quite  too  everyday  to  criticise  a  project  obviously 
framed  for  the  millennium.  From  the  man  re- 
puted to  own  the  Legislature,  whose  committees, 
certainly,  were  cut  and  dried  in  his  office  weeks 


THE   HENCHMAN  335 

before  it  met,  this  sarcasm  was  gloomily  prophetic ; 
but  since  his  Tuscarora  speech,  Shelby  had  per- 
sonally sounded  many  senators,  assemblymen, 
and  representatives  of  the  several  canal  interests, 
and  he  was  not  dismayed. 

The  reception  given  by  the  newspapers  to 
what  they  styled  "  The  Governor's  Splendid 
Dream  "  heartened  Shelby,  though  he  deprecated 
its  form.  He  insisted  that  the  scheme  was  no 
more  his  than  the  committee's,  whose  elaborate 
report  he  submitted  with  his  message,  and  that  it 
was  no  dream  at  all,  but  the  businesslike  remedy 
for  an  admitted  ill.  As  in  De  Witt  Clinton's 
case,  however,  the  public  brushed  aside  the  idle 
question  of  genesis,  and  honored  the  untiring 
advocate. 

There  were  plenty  who  agreed  with  the  gov- 
ernor. Famous  economic  experts  and  civil  ser- 
vice reformers  wrote  their  approval,  great  financiers 
wired  congratulations,  and  the  public  hearings  on 
the  bills  embodying  his  ideas,  which  friendly  leg- 
islators shortly  introduced,  were  attended  by  rep- 
resentatives from  the  exchanges,  boards  of  trade, 
merchants'  associations,  and  chambers  of  com- 
merce of  every  city  directly  concerned. 

A  reporter  remarked  upon  this  striking  show- 
ing to  the  Boss. 


336  THE   HENCHMAN 

"  Yes,"  said  the  great  man,  "  the  governor 
seems  to  have  the  unanimous  support  of  the  col- 
lege professors  and  the  New  Yorkers  who  claim 
residence  in  Newport,  Rhode  Island ;  but  I  won- 
der what  the  taxpayer  thinks." 

This  figurative  taxpayer  personified  for  him 
the  rural  vote  whose  strength  was  his  strength, 
and  whose  thought  he  made  his  own.  He  was 
hearkening  to  the  murmur  of  the  counties  which 
the  canal  did  not  touch,  but  whose  memory  of 
its  flagrant  abuses  was  long,  and  the  conclusion 
that  he  reached  the  country  newspapers  of  his 
system  began  speedily  to  express.  One  editor 
bewailed  the  "  Hundred-Million-Dollar-Mill- 
stone"  which  the  governor  proposed  to  hang 
about  the  people's  neck ;  another  attacked  the 
consistency  of  the  man  who  would  to-day  scatter 
like  a  prodigal  what  he  had  scrimped  yesterday 
to  save ;  while  a  third  pertinently  inquired 
whether  such  a  spendthrift  were  fit  timber  to 
put  in  Washington  as  a  check  upon  the  waxing 
extravagance  of  Congress  ?  By  dint  of  repetition 
these  things  attained  wide  currency. 

Shelby  was  untroubled. 

"  Millions,  to  be  sure,"  he  replied  to  a  query 
of  his  wife's.  "  The  commercial  supremacy  of  a 
state  is  perforce  a  question  of  millions." 


THE    HENCHMAN  337 

"  But  they're  saying  you  risk  your  presidential 
chances,"  she  lamented.  "  Do  take  every  care 
to  strengthen  yourself.  It's  the  fondest  dream 
of  my  life  to  see  you  President.  You  must  let 
nothing  stand  between  you  and  the  nomination." 

"  Thank  heaven  I'm  not  stung  that  badly  !  " 
the  governor  ejaculated. 

"But  for  my  sake!  If  I  should  ask  you  — 
beg  you  on  my  knees  ?  " 

"  I'd  say  you  should  be  in  better  business." 

He  answered  her  lightly,  and  playfully  pinched 
her  ear,  but  she  saw  that  no  word  of  hers  could 
sway  his  purpose,  and  hated  him.  For  the  hour, 
however,  even  this  teasing  vision  of  herself  as 
first  lady  of  the  land  paled  before  the  very  pres- 
ent topic  of  Milicent's  debut.  Despite  Shelby's 
advice  and  her  own  pleadings,  the  girl  had  not 
been  allowed  to  return  to  her  school  in  the 
autumn ;  for  when  they  met  at  the  summer's  end, 
the  revelation  of  her  daughter's  good  looks  and 
unconscious  girlish  charm,  by  her  mother  called 
manner,  revived  a  shadowy  project  of  Cora's  for 
an  elaborate  coming-out  ball  which  had  enticed 
her  in  the  early  days  of  life  in  Albany.  Neither 
Milicent's  reluctance  nor  her  stepfather's  pro- 
test against  the  launching  of  so  young  a  girl 
availed. 


338  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Only  last  week  I  saw  her  playing  with  a 
doll,"  said  Shelby,  routed  at  every  turn. 

"  What  an  argument !  I  played  with  dolls 
after  I  was  married  to  Joe.  If  you  postponed 
a  woman's  debut  till  she  tired  of  dolls,  you  would 
conflict  with  her  funeral." 

This  sally  displayed  such  unexpected  humor 
that  Shelby  laughed,  and  his  wife  seized  the 
favoring  moment  to  end  discussion. 

"  It's  my  duty  to  my  child,"  she  declared ; 
"  and  of  that,  a  mother  is  the  best  judge." 

Although  the  event  was  to  be  deferred  till  late 
February,  as  the  crowning  glory  of  the  season 
which  Lent  would  close,  Cora's  plans  were  on 
foot  by  Thanksgiving  Day.  Among  her  earliest 
preliminaries  was  the  enlisting  of  Mrs.  Van  Dam, 
whose  friendship  for  Milicent  she  had  determined 
to  exploit  as  soon  as  she  learned  of  its  existence. 
This  was  not  difficult.  Of  the  wisdom  of  the 
thing  Mrs.  Van  Dam  said  nothing,  —  she  had  had 
her  fill  of  advising  Mrs.  Shelby,  —  but  her  sym- 
pathy for  Milicent  was  keen,  and  it  drew  her  into 
a  rather  distasteful  share  in  Cora's  programme,  in 
the  hope  of  lessening  the  girl's  ordeal.  Where 
Mrs.  Teunis  Van  Dam  led,  Albany  naturally 
followed  ;  and  with  Albany  subdued,  Cora  directed 
her  conquering  march  toward  other  worlds.  In 


THE    HENCHMAN  339 

the  year  of  her  publicity  she  had,  through  Mrs. 
Tommy  Kidder  and  other  agencies,  brushed  here 
and  there  at  the  rim  of  the  magic  inner  circle  of 
metropolitan  society,  for  every  inch  of  which  she 
now  encroached  an  ell.  Shelby  gained  his  first 
knowledge  of  the  astonishing  extent  of  his  wife's 
acquaintance  when  he  scanned  the  invitation  list 
of  a  thousand  names,  and  was  told  by  the  mili- 
tary secretary  that  New  York's  quota  was  coming 
by  special  train. 

About  five  o'clock  on  the  evening  of  the  ball, 
the  governor  came  home  fagged  and  depressed. 
Aside  from  canal  reform,  still  drifting  through 
seas  of  talk,  the  legislative  session  presented  sev- 
eral insistent  public  questions  which  seemed  to 
have  imposed  their  cumulative  worry  on  his 
morning  hours  ;  later  had  come  an  acrimonious 
hearing  over  the  removal  of  an  incompetent  dis- 
trict attorney ;  then  a  quarter-hour's  fencing  with 
the  press  correspondents,  who  wanted  to  know 
things  which  it  was  inexpedient  to  tell ;  and, 
finally,  a  rasping  conference  with  the  Boss,  who, 
using  the  ball  as  a  cover  for  one  of  his  rare  pil- 
grimages to  Albany,  had,  throughout  the  day, 
held  levee  in  his  hotel  parlors  with  such  vogue 
that  at  moments  both  Senate  and  Assembly  all 
but  lacked  a  quorum. 


340  THE    HENCHMAN 

Mrs.  Tommy  Kidder's  brougham  blocked  the 
porte-cochere  as  Shelby  mounted  the  steps  of 
the  executive  mansion,  and  at  the  door  he  met 
the  volatile  lady  herself. 

"  I've  been  watching  the  workmen  give  the 
finishing  touch,  governor,"  she  gushed.  "You 
are  about  to  set  foot  in  fairyland." 

Shelby  put  her  in  her  carriage,  and  entered  the 
house.  It  did  not  seem  fairylike.  Only  a  dim 
light  shone  here  and  there  through  the  dusk,  and 
the  floors  were  not  yet  clear  of  the  rubbish  of  the 
decorators.  From  one  of  the  smaller  rooms  came 
the  sound  of  Handsome  Ludlow's  voice.  He 
too,  apparently,  had  been  watching  the  finishing 
touch.  The  governor  passed  on  to  his  own 
apartments  in  quest  of  peace.  It  was  a  vain 
search.  His  quarters  had  been  invaded  and  cur- 
tailed for  the  event,  and  the  corner  left  him  was 
confused  and  forlorn.  He  lit  a  cigar,  smoked  a 
brief  moment,  heard  a  feminine  cough  on  the 
farther  side  of  a  door  leading  to  one  of  the 
rooms  from  which  some  guest  had  dispossessed 
him,  and  desisted. 

He  went  downstairs  presently,  and  left  the 
house  for  the  conservatory,  a  favorite  haunt  of 
his,  usually  troubled  by  no  one  else  save  Mili- 
cent.  He  scarcely  knew  one  flower  from  another, 


THE    HENCHMAN  341 

but  he  delighted  to  potter  about,  smelling  here 
and  there,  and  the  Scotch  gardener  idolized  him 
as  heartily  as  he  detested  the  wife,  who  cared 
nothing  for  these  treasures  in  themselves,  and 
openly  avowed  that  she  preferred  the  odor  of 
patchouli. 

The  greenhouses  proved  rather  forlorn  too, 
denuded  as  they  were  of  so  many  potted  things 
for  the  glory  of  the  mansion ;  but  their  quiet 
obscurity  ministered  to  Shelby's  jaded  mood. 
Then  he  perceived  that  he  was  not  alone.  Low 
voices  drifted  from  another  aisle  —  Ludlow's  and 
Cora's  —  doubtless  still  absorbed  in  the  finishing 
touch.  After  an  instant's  hesitation  the  gov- 
ernor moved  toward  them,  till  a  vivid  little  pic- 
ture framed  by  the  fronds  of  a  drooping  fern 
brought  him  to  a  standstill.  He  beheld  a 
deliberate  kiss. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  scene  so  nearly  paralleled  that  crucial  mo- 
ment in  his  own  life,  under  Joe  Milliard's  roof, 
that  the  quarry  owner  seemed  fairly  to  twitch  his 
sleeve.  Then,  as  the  dead  man  had  done  before 
him,  Shelby  stayed  his  hand.  Milliard  had  re- 
spected his  hearthstone  because  it  held  the  ashes 
of  a  burned-out  love ;  the  governor  respected  his 
office.  Unseen  by  the  rapt  pair,  he  left  the  con- 
servatory, and  regained  his  disordered  room. 

How  should  he  act?  There  was  scant  oppor- 
tunity for  reflection.  The  dinner  hour  was  pres- 
ently upon  him,  with  a  chattering  tableful  of 
Cora's  friends  who  were  staying  in  the  house. 
Shelby  seldom  shone  in  these  mixed  companies, 
and  to-night  he  seemed  to  himself  to  stand  off  in 
wondering  detachment,  while  somebody  clothed 
in  his  likeness  said  and  did  many  things.  He 
made  clear  a  bit  of  political  slang  for  the  woman 
in  yellow  ^on  his  right ;  he  smiled  appreciation  of 
the  quip  of  a  young  thing  in  pink  three  places 
distant  down  the  left ;  he  explained  to  a  foreign 

342 


THE    HENCHMAN  343 

gentleman,  whose  English  was  irreparably  broken, 
that  Albany  was  not  the  capital  of  the  United 
States ;  and  all  this  time  he  watched  his  viva- 
cious wife  at  the  table's  end,  and  marvelled  at 
her  hypocrisy.  So  Joe  Milliard  had  probably 
wondered.  Milliard  was  very  real  to  him.  He 
seemed  to  have  incased  himself  in  Milliard's  per- 
sonality. A  little  later,  when  Milicent,  all  exhil- 
aration now  that  the  bursting  of  the  cocoon  was 
instant,  came  in  her  bravery  for  his  approval,  he 
kissed  her  like  one  who  knows  no  care,  and 
extravagantly  admired  the  roses  he  forgot  that  he 
had  sent.  The  same  mechanical  self  stood  beside 
his  wife  and  stepdaughter  at  the  coming  of  the 
guests,  spoke  its  automatic  greetings,  and  ex- 
tended its  automatic  hand. 

For  one  brief  instant  the  opiate  lifted.  The 
endless  smirking  procession  had  cast  Ludlow  to 
the  front.  The  man  was  lingering  with  easy 
assurance  between  mother  and  daughter. 

"  Which  is  the  debutante  ?  "  he  asked. 

Shelby  could  have  felled  him  for  taking  the 
girl's  hand — Cora's  mattered  nothing.  But  what 
of  his  own  hand  ?  Milicent's  fan  suddenly  es- 
caped its  fastening,  and  as  suddenly  he  caught  at 
the  pretext  for  which  he  groped.  Again  in  his 
place,  Ludlow  had  drifted  by  with  no  word 


344  THE    HENCHMAN 

spoken  between  them.  He  sighed  with  relief, 
and  in  the  same  breath  cursed  himself  and  the 
conventions  which  compelled  such  cunning.  In 
a  rational  world  he  could  have  knocked  him 
down. 

Once  again  that  evening  they  came  face  to 
face.  It  was  late  —  past  one  o'clock  —  and  the 
governor  issuing  from  the  smoking-room  met 
Ludlow  at  the  threshold.  No  one  was  within 
earshot ;  fate  itself  seemed  to  have  ordered  the 
meeting,  and  till  that  moment  Shelby  had  desired 
to  confront  Ludlow  with  a  fierce  desire.  Yet 
they  passed  with  a  nod.  Long  uncertain  before 
many  offering  courses,  Shelby  on  the  instant 
made  his  choice. 

The  orchestra  hushed,  the  last  good  night 
spoken,  Milicent  gone  to  her  dreams,  the  house 
half  in  darkness,  he  intercepted  Cora  in  the  corri- 
dor leading  to  her  apartments. 

"  Ten  minutes  of  your  time,"  he  requested. 

She  stared,  yawned,  and  stared  again. 

"  At  this  hour  ?  " 

"  Now." 

She  led  the  way  into  her  dressing-room  and 
sent  away  her  maid.  Shelby  waited  silently  by 
the  open  grate  till  they  should  be  alone. 

"You're  rather  pale,"  observed  his  wife,  Ian- 


THE    HENCHMAN  345 

guidly,  in  passing  to  a  chair ;  and  with  finger  tip 
lightly  brushed  his  cheek. 

He  shrank  involuntarily. 

"Pale  and  nervous,"  she  added,  "and  a  fit 
subject  for  bed.  Was  Old  Silky  disagreeable 
to-day  ?  I  thought  him  as  sweet  as  peaches  to- 
night. Did  you  notice  Mrs.  Van  Dam's  famous 
diamonds?  It's  not  often  she  wears  them  all. 
Milicent  got  her  to  do  it." 

"  I  was  in  the  greenhouse  before  dinner, 
Cora,"  said  Shelby,  speaking  with  slow  emphasis. 
"  I  saw  you  and  Ludlow." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  returned  the  woman,  glibly,  "  we 
were  wondering  whether  the  large  drawing-room 
needed  a  few  more  palms." 

"  I  saw  you  and  Ludlow  in  one  another's 
arms,"  pursued  her  husband  in  the  same  hard 
staccato.  "  I  saw  him  kiss  you." 

She  half  rose,  eying  him  fearfully ;  then,  re- 
assured by  what  she  saw,  sank  back  in  her  seat, 
fingering  the  long  glove  she  had  partly  drawn 
from  one  white  arm.  As  on  that  other  night, 
her  faultless  shoulders  rose  from  a  black  setting 
of  laces  and  shining  jet,  and,  manlike,  Shelby 
took  the  garment  for  the  same  which  had  helped 
to  warp  the  fabric  of  his  life  from  its  design. 
The  remembrance  maddened  him. 


346  THE   HENCHMAN 

"  Speak,  you  devil,"  he  charged. 

"  I  love  him,"  she  returned  defiantly.  "  I 
love  him." 

"  And  my  wife  !  " 

"  I  was  Joe's  wife  —  before." 

"  You've  the  right  to  say  it,"  he  owned. 

"  Well,  then,  meet  me  halfway.  Since  you 
know  the  truth,  what  do  you  advise  me  to  do  ? " 

"  Advise  you  ?  "  he  echoed. 

"  Precisely.  Put  yourself  in  my  place.  Sup- 
pose that  you  were  in  love  with  somebody." 

He  started. 

((  T  " 

"  So  hard,  is  it  ?  Suppose  it,  anyhow.  Sup- 
pose yourself  a  human  being  instead  of — well, 
say  a  personified  canal ;  a  human  being  married 
to  another  human  being  —  the  wrong  one  —  with 
your  love  for  the  right  one  growing  stronger 
every  day.  What  would  you  do  ?  " 

"  Master  my  passion.  Preserve  my  self-re- 
spect." 

She  laughed  at  the  trumpet  note  of  his  answer. 

"  You've  the  cocksure  remedy  of  one  who  has 
never  tried." 

He  strangled  a  retort. 

"  Try  to  comprehend  my  feelings,"  she  pur- 
sued. "  If  you  were  in  love  with  me,  I  shouldn't 


THE   HENCHMAN  347 

ask  it.  But  you're  not  in  love  with  me.  Frankly 
now,  are  you  ?  " 

"  I  am  your  husband." 

"  And  I'm  your  wife.  Does  that  prove  a  love 
affair  ?  No,  no.  The  naked  fact  is  that  neither 
cares,  and  because  of  that  I  ask  you  plainly  how 
we  can  best  arrange  the  matter." 

"  This  is  nonsense." 

"  It  isn't.  It's  common  sense.  A  New  York 
woman  I  know  —  I  met  her  at  Narragansett  — 
was  in  the  same  position.  Her  husband  was 
broad-minded,  and  they  settled  everything  with- 
out an  unkind  word.  She  lived  somewhere  in 
the  Dakotas  for  a  few  months,  married  again  as 
soon  as  the  judge  signed  the  decree,  and  made 
a  roundabout  journey  home  her  wedding  trip." 

"  And  you  would  imitate  this  programme  ?  " 

"  In  some  respects  —  yes.  I've  not  thought  it 
out  in  detail.  Your  practical  mind  ought  to  shed 
abundant  light.  If  you  weren't  my  husband,  I'd 
retain  you  as  my  lawyer." 

"  By  Heaven,  I've  stood  enough  of  this ! " 
flashed  Shelby.  "  Are  you  destitute  of  even  the 
moral  rags  and  tatters  a  Hottentot  may  boast? 
You  ask  my  advice.  Have  it  you  shall,  and  fol- 
low it  you  must.  I  have  forfeited  the  right  to  re- 
proach you  as  man  to  wife  —  granted  that  I  never 


348  THE    HENCHMAN 

had  it ;  as  a  man  I  waive  my  personal  affront. 
But  as  the  governor  of  this  state  to  the  mistress 
of  this,  the  state's  house,  I  warn  you  that  this 
brazen  mockery  of  decency  must  end.  When 
I  am  governor  no  longer  you  may  go  your  way 
in  such  fashion  as  you  will.  Till  then  you  must 
take  no  step  which  shall  discredit  my  office  or  the 
position  to  which  my  office  raises  you.  You  will 
tell  Ludlow  this,  and  when  you  have  told  him, 
you  will  hold  no  private  speech  with  him  until 
my  successor  takes  his  oath.  Promise." 

His  volcanic  outburst  cowed  her  flippancy. 

"  I  promise,"  'she  said. 

Before  the  week  elapsed  the  newspapers  an- 
nounced that  Ludlow  had  decided  to  resume  the 
practice  of  law  in  New  York.  Cora  made  no 
comment ;  but  Shelby  read  into  the  retreat  her 
purpose  to  keep  their  sorry  truce  inviolate,  and 
strove  to  shut  his  mind  to  every  thought  alien  to 
his  work. 

The  public  business  was  absorbing  enough  in 
truth.  His  great  canal  project,  which  during  a 
month  of  hearings,  conferences,  committee  en- 
meshments,  and  the  like,  had  hung  in  jeopardy, 
was  wrecked  beyond  repair.  Nor  was  this  the 
worst.  The  governor's  forcing  of  the  issue  had 
convinced  the  Boss  that  a  popular  demand  for 


THE    HENCHMAN  349 

canal  legislation  of  some  sort  really  existed,  and 
he  prepared  to  respond  with  a  measure  after  his 
own  heart.  A  vicious  substitute,  which  it  was 
given  out  that  the  organization  fully  indorsed, 
glided  facilely  to  its  final  reading  after  the  manner 
of  bills  bearing  the  mystic  sign  manual  of  the 
Boss.  Foreseeing  disaster,  Shelby  sought  at  least 
to  rescue  the  wise  provision  of  his  plan  which 
looked  to  the  administration  of  the  canals  along 
business  lines,  and  to  this  end  used  his  personal 
influence  with  various  members  of  the  Legisla- 
ture. Achieving  little  here,  he  even  appealed 
to  the  leader  himself. 

The  Boss  wrote  him  in  his  ironic  mood. 

"  Naturally  I  cannot  forecast  the  action  of 
the  Legislature,"  he  said,  following  his  modest 
custom  of  disclaiming  foreknowledge  of  the 
events  he  shaped ;  "  but  in  my  opinion  any 
measure  which  ignores  the  legitimate  expectation 
of  patronage  on  the  part  of  the  party  in  power 
is  too  idyllic  for  this  workday  world." 

Shelby  was  at  no  loss  to  give  this  dictum  its 
true  interpretation.  His  own  scheme  had  se- 
cured the  party's  legitimate  rights  sufficiently  — 
he  was  too  clear-sighted  to  overlook  that.  It 
was  the  party's  illicit  greed  for  spoils  which  he 
had  failed  to  satisfy — the  greed  which  the  Boss 


350  THE   HENCHMAN 

had  framed  his  makeshift  to  meet.  The  oppor- 
tunity for  jobbery  was  left  as  wide  as  before, 
perhaps  wider ;  for  while  under  color  of  economy 
the  appropriation  cut  the  reasonable  sum  Shelby 
had  suggested  as  a  beginning,  it  was  a  vast 
amount  still.  So  conceived,  and  at  the  eleventh 
hour  saddled  with  an  amendment  directing  the 
building  of  a  costly  feeder  which  the  engineers 
had  declared  needless,  the  travesty  of  all  the 
governor's  good  intentions  passed  both  Houses 
by  a  narrow  vote,  and  reached  Shelby  himself. 

Jacob  Krantz,  whose  interest  in  this  particular 
bit  of  legislation  was  keen,  in  his  own  vernac- 
ular hit  off  the  situation. 

"  It's  time  for  a  show-down,"  said  this  ob- 
server of  things  as  they  are.  "  The  Boss  has 
put  it  up  to  the  Champion  of  Canals  to  make 
good  his  bluff." 

Shelby  realized  this  truth  clearly  enough  in 
the  ten  days  given  him  by  the  constitution  for 
his  decision  ;  but  he  took  no  one  into  his  confi- 
dence, and  fought  his  dreary  battle  alone.  It 
was  a  hard  choice  that  destiny  had  offered  him 
in  the  end  —  total  shipwreck  of  his  brave  dream- 
ings,  or  a  salvage  of  what  perhaps  might  better 
sink.  Had  his  duty  by  the  people  been  abso- 
lutely plain,  he  would  have  acted  instantly,  for 


THE    HENCHMAN  351 

he  had  striven  to  be  the  people's  governor; 
but  in  the  ten  days  of  his  ordeal  the  people 
seemed  to  speak  with  a  hundred  differing  tongues, 
whose  single  coherent  message  proclaimed  what 
he  already  knew  —  that  for  him  there  could  be 
no  middle  way.  The  bill  was  in  the  form  of  a 
concurrent  resolution  to  submit  the  appropria- 
tion to  popular  vote ;  but  Shelby  had  no  mind 
to  dodge  his  responsibility.  With  his  record,  with 
his  conception  of  his  trust,  he  must  confront  the 
issue  squarely  —  sign  or  reject. 

One  of  the  most  clamorous  of  the  newspapers 
favoring  the  bill  phrased  his  choice  yet  more 
narrowly,  quoting  copiously  from  his  speeches 
and  bidding  him  "  sign  or  stultify."  But  appeals 
to  his  consistency  found  him  deaf.  The  man 
who  never  changed  his  mind  and  the  man  who 
never  changed  his  coat  were  to  him  equally 
ridiculous ;  time  had  its  sport  with  each  of  them. 
Another  attack,  made  when  he  had  held  the 
bill  for  upward  of  a  week  and  a  rumor  of  a  veto 
was  rife,  drew  blood.  Volney  Sprague's  Whig 
which,  without  ever  thinking  good  of  Shelby, 
had  long  since  returned  to  the  party  fold,  em- 
braced the  occasion  to  revive  the  old  scandals 
linking  Shelby's  name  to  unsavory  canal  con- 
tracts, with  the  insinuation  that  the  governor's 


352  THE   HENCHMAN 

real  quarrel  with  the  bill  which  had  passed  lay 
in  the  fact  that  it  exposed  too  few  millions  to 
thievery.  The  erratic  editor's  virtual  allegiance 
to  the  Boss  whom  he  once  had  flayed,  might  have 
caused  Shelby  a  smile,  had  he  not  been  saddened 
by  the  thought  that  any  human  being  could  mis- 
understand him  so  completely.  To  him  it  was 
a  transparent  truth  that  because  he  had  known 
the  canal's  abuses  as  a  politician,  so  surely  must 
he  wish  to  end  them  as  governor  of  the  state. 

The  veto  rumor,  which  Shelby  neither  fathered 
nor  encouraged,  precipitated  two  things :  the 
Boss  sent  word  through  his  nephew,  a  not  in- 
frequent messenger,  that  the  party's  interests 
plainly  required  that  the  party's  governor  waive 
his  personal  disappointment  and  sign  the  bill  at 
once ;  while  Cora,  for  some  days  past  of  a  re- 
pentent  mind,  requested  the  same  small  favor 
as  a  reward  of  virtue. 

"  Show  in  this  way  that  you  forgive  my  folly," 
she  cajoled.  "  You'll  never  be  President  with- 
out the  Boss's  aid — everybody  says  so.  Do 
as  he  wishes  and  as  I  wish  too." 

"  And  give  you  a  chance  to  intrigue  with  the 
Handsome  Ludlows  of  Washington  ?  " 

By  and  by,  as  he  sat  writing  in  his  study,  he 
would  have  unsaid  the  taunt,  and  resolved  that 


THE   HENCHMAN 


353 


he  would  talk  rationally  with  her  of  his  dilemma 
and  of  the  course  he  was  prepared  to  take ;  but 
no  opportunity  befell  that  evening,  and  on  the 
morrow,  the  last  day  left  him  but  one,  he  break- 
fasted alone.  Partly  with  the  intention  of  speak- 
ing to  her,  partly  for  freedom  from  the  button- 
holing of  the  grillroom  where  he  usually  lunched, 
he  left  the  executive  chamber  shortly  before  one 
o'clock  and  set  out  on  foot  for  his  home. 

As  he  turned  from  the  capitol  park  into  his  own 
street,  Mrs.  Van  Dam's  carriage  halted  abruptly 
at  the  curb,  and  the  old  lady  beckoned  him. 

"I'll  not  ask  you  to  get  in,"  she  said,  "for 
I'm  sure  you  need  the  walk,  but  I've  news  to 
tell  you  of  a  friend  of  ours.  Ruth  Graves's  hus- 
band died  in  Los  Angeles  yesterday  after  an 
operation  for  appendicitis." 

Time  had  softened  the  rougher  memories 
of  his  brief  rivalry  with  the  dead  man,  and  the 
circumstance  that  each  had  in  some  degree  given 
distinction  to  their  common  birthplace  threw 
Bernard  Graves  into  a  light  which  made  his 
early  taking  off  mildly  pathetic,  but  in  this 
moment  Shelby's  mind  could  compass  only  the 
one  great  fact —  Ruth  was  free  ! 

Canal,  governorship,  presidency  forgotten,  he 
stared  into  the  muddy  street  as  the  carriage 

2  A 


354 


THE    HENCHMAN 


whipped  away,  till  a  knot  of  school  children 
gathered  at  his  heels  with  round  eyes  centred  on 
the  cobbles  which  apparently  engrossed  him. 
Shelby  recalled  himself,  and  hurried  on  to  his 
own  door. 

"  I  shall  lunch  at  home  to-day,"  he  said  to  a 
servant  in  the  hall.  "  Please  tell  my  wife." 

The  man  handed  him  a  sealed  note  explain- 
ing:— 

"  Mrs.  Shelby  went  out  about  an  hour  ago. 
She  asked  me  to  give  you  this." 

Shelby  carried  the  note  to  his  room  before  he 
opened  it. 

"  I  can't  keep  my  promise,"  it  ran.  "  I  saw 
him  to-day.  He  wants  me.  Good-by." 


CHAPTER   VIII 

HE,  no  less  than  Ruth,  was  free !  There  was 
no  dissociating  the  two  facts.  They  shouted 
their  message  together.  He  was  rid  of  his  incu- 
bus—  why  mince  the  word  now!  —  rid  of  her 
gadfly  vulgarity,  her  shallow  emotions,  her  pinch- 
beck ideals,  her  hideous  selfishness.  By  her  own 
rash  act  she  had  freed  him  to  marry  the  woman 
he  loved  with  all  his  rugged  strength  —  the  woman 
who  that  memorable  September  day  had  proved 
loved  him.  What  was  the  transient  chatter 
of  the  world  beside  this  verity  !  What  might  he 
not  achieve  in  the  new  life  !  What  station  could 
he  not  now  find  confidence  to  fill ! 

A  knock  distracted,  without  wholly  rousing 
him.  Milicent  entered. 

"  I  hear  you're  to  lunch  at  home,  father,"  she 
said.  "  The  gong  has  sounded  twice." 

He  stared  vacantly  into  her  young  eyes ;  her 
very  existence  had  been  blotted  from  his  recollec- 
tion. 

355 


356  THE    HENCHMAN 

"  Aren't  you  well  ?  "  She  came  to  him.  "  I 
shall  be  glad  when  the  Legislature  stops  worrying 
you  and  goes  home." 

He  crushed  his  wife's  note  into  a  pocket. 

"Yes;  I'm  well,"  he  answered  slowly.  "Just 
worried  —  as  you  say.  That's  all.  I  thought  an 
hour  at  home  would  help  —  home  quiet,  you 
know  —  home  —  " 

There  was  a  frightened  widening  of  her  gray 
eyes,  and  Shelby  pulled  himself  together. 

"  But  I  can't  lunch  with  you  after  all,  little 
girl,"  he  told  her  hurriedly.  "  I  find  I  must  go 
back.  It  seems  your  mother  is  —  is  out.  Per- 
haps you  know  —  " 

He  stopped.     What  did  she  know  ? 

"  I'm  just  in  from  a  turn  about  Washington 
Park,"  explained  the  girl.  "  The  maple  buds 
are  all  bursting.  And  you  should  see  the  cro- 
cuses." 

"Your  mother  has  been  called  out  of  town. 
She  will  be  gone  all  night,  probably  —  perhaps 
longer.  You  had  best  ask  some  friends  in  to  stay 
with  you.  It  will  cheer  us  up.  Now  go  down 
to  your  luncheon.  You  mustn't  let  me  spoil  it 
for  you." 

"  But  you're  not  well,"  she  insisted. 

"I  am  —  I  am  indeed."     Out  of  a  window  he 


THE    HENCHMAN  357 

caught  sight  of  his  wife's  coupe.  "  I'll  take  that 
down  town,"  he  said. 

They  descended  together.  In  the  hall  he 
warned  again,  "  Don't  let  your  luncheon  spoil." 

His  foot  on  the  carriage  step,  he  questioned  the 
coachman  :  — 

"  Did  Mrs.  Shelby  catch  her  train  ? " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  the  man  replied  cheerfully.  "  I 
saw  to  that.  A  close  shave,  though.  I  heard  it 
pull  out  as  we  drove  aw.ay." 

"  That  was  at  what  time  ?  " 

"  One  twenty-five,  sir." 

"  No  baggage  ?  " 

"Just  hand  satchels,"  put  in  the  footman. 
"  Mrs.  Shelby  said  her  trunks  weren't  ready." 

"  Drive  to  Canon  North's,"  directed  the  gov- 
ernor, jumping  in.  "  He's  near  the  cathedral,  you 
know." 

The  carriage  jolted  from  cobbles  to  asphalt, 
rounded  the  looming  capitol  with  its  chateau-like 
red  roofs  cut  sharply  against  the  pure  spring  sky, 
grated  the  stones  again,  and  halted  at  the  canon's 
door.  The  governor  had  the  carriage  door  open 
before  the  footman  could  leap  down,  and  told  the 
man  that  he  would  make  his  own  inquiries. 

The  maid  said  that  he  had  missed  the  clergy- 
man by  five  minutes.  Possibly  he  could  be 


THE    HENCHMAN 

found  at  the  cathedral ;  perhaps  at  the  Beverwyck 
Club. 

Shelby  bade  the  coupe  follow,  and  hurried  on 
foot  to  the  church,  which  lifted  its  temporary 
wooden  roof  above  the  clustering  episcopal  build- 
ings near  at  hand.  Two  or  three  cabs  waited  at 
the  curb,  from  one  of  which  fluttered  a  facetious 
knot  of  white  ribbon  tied  to  an  axletree.  A 
smell  of  stale  incense  pervaded  the  vestibule. 
The  murmured  words  of  a  liturgy  drifted  down 
the  long  nave  as  he  passed  within.  North  was 
reading  the  marriage  service.  Shelby  bided  rest- 
ively in  the  shadow  of  a  column  till  the  ceremony 
should  end. 

It  was  a  small  wedding  party,  merely  a  handful 
of  onlookers,  chiefly  teary  women,  grouped  around 
the  courageous  pair,  whose  stanch  "  I  will " 
woke  derisive  echoes  aloft. 

"  For  better  for  worse,  for  richer  for  poorer,  in 
sickness  and  in  health  .  .  .  till  death  do  us  part." 

The  youngsters  pattered  the  awful  words  so 
glibly !  Then  North's  prayer  went  forth  over 
their  kneeling  figures,  they  rose,  took  his  hand  an 
instant,  and  turned  to  face  an  applauding  world. 
The  watcher  pitied  them  with  a  great  pity. 

Shelby  followed  North  from  chancel  to  vestry. 
The  priest  had  laid  aside  stole  and  surplice,  and 


THE    HENCHMAN  359 

stood  meditatively  in  his  cassock  as  the  caller 
entered.  Some  men  the  cassock  effeminates ;  not 
so  North,  whose  virile  shape  it  emphasized,  mod- 
elling his  muscles  like  an  antique  drapery.  He 
seemed  to  radiate  strength. 

The  canon  remarked  his  friend's  strained  face, 
greeted  him  as  if  governors  made  a  practice  of 
popping  into  his  vestry  unannounced,  and  bade  a 
negro,  who  was  folding  vestments,  to  finish  his 
task  later. 

"  What  has  happened  to  you  ? "  he  asked, 
directly  they  were  alone. 

"  My  wife  has  eloped." 

North  started  at  the  bald  announcement,  but 
asked  quietly :  — 

"  Did  she  leave  by  the  one  twenty-five  train  ? " 

"  You  saw  her  ?  " 

"  I  saw  him."  Ludlow  needed  no  naming. 
"  I  came  in  from  the  west  at  that  time  for  this 
wedding." 

Shelby  jerked  out  his  watch. 

"  That  train  is  an  accommodation,  making 
nearly  all  stops.  They  were  probably  too  ex- 
cited to  consider  the  fact,  or  care.  Any  one 
taking  the  Southwestern  Limited  twenty  min- 
utes from  now  would  make  New  York  half  an 
hour  before  them  —  provided  they're  bound  for 


360  THE   HENCHMAN 

New  York.  Of  course,  there's  the  chance  that 
they  will  change  at  some  point  to  the  express, 
which  left  a  quarter  of  an  hour  ago.  Somebody 
must  intercept  them." 

"  And  it's  your  present  misfortune  to  be  gov- 
ernor of  New  York,"  added  the  canon,  ripping  at 
the  buttons  of  his  cassock.  "  Permit  me  to  fill 
your  place." 

"  It's  a  hateful  thing  to  ask  of  you.  I  could 
ask  it  of  no  other  man." 

North  nodded,  and  caught  up  his  hat  and  coat. 

"  You  did  right  to  come  to  me,  my  friend." 

"  Say  to  her""  —  they  passed  again  into  the 
silent  nave  on  the  way  to  the  carriage — "say 
that  one  of  the  best  little  girls  who  ever  lived  is 
waiting  for  her  mother  to  return  from  —  from 
shopping,  what  you  please.  Say  that  I  — " 
He  broke  off,  and  fronted  North  in  the  stillness. 
"  By  God  !  no,"  he  burst  out  suddenly.  "  No 
message  from  me  yet.  I  can't  do  it  yet  — " 

The  governor  went  back  to  the  executive 
chamber,  and  heard,  one  by  one,  the  stories  of 
the  callers  who  had  massed  the  antechamber 
during  his  prolonged  absence.  From  all  sec- 
tions, of  all  degrees,  of  all  political  types,  their 
importunities  were  variants  of  a  single  theme  — 
the  thing  he  could  give.  Him  they  gave  noth- 


361 

ing,  not  even  encouragement.  Five  o'clock 
came  at  last,  and  he  left  the  plain  little  work- 
cell  behind  the  sumptuous  panelling  of  the  execu- 
tive chamber  for  a  ten-minute  bout  with  the  press 
correspondents.  Was  it  true  that  he  had  decided 
to  sign  the  canal  bill?  Was  a  veto  imminent? 
Did  he  propose  to  let  it  become  a  law  without 
his  signature  ?  Had  he  and  the  great  leader 
severed  their  relations  ?  Was  a  breach  in  the 
party  machine  a  possibility  ?  What  was  his 
position  with  regard  to  the  presidential  nomina- 
tion? Did  he  approve  of  an  out-and-out  in- 
dorsement of  the  gold  standard? 

He  was  through  with  them  finally,  and  the 
office-seeking,  news-hungry  world,  supposing  him 
gone  to  his  home,  left  him  alone  in  his  cell  to 
complete  his  interrupted  work.  Half-past  five 
o'clock !  His  thoughts  strayed  to  follow  the 
course  of  two  trains.  By  now  the  fugitives  were 
below  the  Highlands ;  North  must  already  be 
entering  the  city.  Fort  George  and  the  bridges 
of  the  Harlem  were  above  his  head,  the  long, 
straight  streets  reeled  away  like  the  spokes  of  a 
giant  wheel.  Presently  he  would  pace  the  plat- 
form at  Forty-second  Street.  In  an  hour  they 
would  meet. 

Shelby   forced    his    mind    back    to    his   desk. 


362  THE   HENCHMAN 

The  closely  written  sheets  of  manuscript  which 
had  filled  his  evening  yesterday  lay  before  him. 
He  called  his  private  secretary  from  the  adjoin- 
ing room. 

"  Have  the  stenographers  all  gone  ?  " 

"  All  but  one,  governor,"  said  the  secretary. 
"  He  is  working  past  hours  on  a  personal  matter 
for  me." 

"  Let  me  borrow  him." 

For  an  hour  the  governor  slowly  dictated  from 
his  sheets. 

"  You  will  miss  your  regular  dinner  over  this," 
he  said  to  the  man,  at  the  end,  and  pressed  a 
bank-note  upon  him.  "  We'll  need  several  copies, 
of  course." 

The  stenographer  went  to  his  typewriter,  and 
Shelby  walked  out  to  his  secretary's  desk. 

"  He's  working  on  this,"  he  explained,  show- 
ing him  a  page  of  the  manuscript.  "  I  suppose 
he  doesn't  leak  news  ?  " 

The  secretary  flushed  a  little  over  the  hasty 
reading. 

"  He  is  wholly  trustworthy,"  he  replied. 

"There  is  nothing  of  the  Star  Chamber  order 
about  the  matter,  but  I  always  prefer  to  be  the 
source  of  information.  I  should  have  put  this 
through  to-day  if  a  personal  affair  hadn't  pre- 


THE    HENCHMAN  363 

vented.  Have  the  formalities  in  readiness  for 
the  morning.  Good  night." 

He  again  consulted  his  watch.  They  had 
met !  Without  seeing  him  he  walked  past  an 
orderly  with  a  telegram.  The  man  overtook 
him  at  the  elevator. 

"  So  soon  ?  "  said  the  governor,  absently. 

The  orderly  exchanged  glances  with  the  ele- 
vator boy. 

Shelby  tore  open  North's  message.  It  said 
"  Come,"  and  named  a  Forty-second  Street  hotel. 
One  of  the  fastest  trains  in  the  world  was  due  in 
less  than  a  half-hour.  In  fifteen  minutes  he 
gained  the  station.  With  the  time  which  re- 
mained he  wired  North  of  his  coming,  and  tele- 
phoned Milicent  a  cheery  message  that  he 
should  not  return  till  late.  She  told  him  that 
she  had  her  friends  with  her,  and  he  even  caught 
a  gay  little  echo  of  their  chatter. 

It  occurred  to  him  that  he  had  eaten  nothing 
since  morning,  and  as  the  train  cleared  the  river 
and  raced  southward  on  its  long  flight,  he  ordered 
food.  But  he  scarcely  tasted  it.  No  food  could 
appease  the  hunger  of  his  mind,  the  starvation  of 
a  lifetime,  which  the  canon's  message  prefigured. 
His  ugly  thoughts  kept  pace  with  the  roaring 
monster  which  bore  him ;  but,  unlike  the  mon- 


364  THE    HENCHMAN 

ster,  he  made  no  real  progress ;  spun  vainly, 
rather,  like  a  top.  After  all,  what  was  he,  what 
was  human  striving  everywhere,  but  a  vainly 
spinning  top.  He  dozed  over  his  drear  philoso- 
phy, and  from  dozing  slept. 

He  woke  as  the  train  swung  at  Spuyten  Duy- 
vil  from  the  valley  of  the  Hudson  to  the  valley 
of  the  Harlem,  freshened  his  face  with  cold  water, 
and  stepped  from  the  car  at  his  journey's  end 
clear-eyed  and  alert.  Beyond  the  iron  barrier 
of  the  train  shed  stood  North. 

Shelby  caught^his  hand. 

"  Well  ? " 

"  It  is  well." 

"Where  is  she?" 

"  Waiting  at  the  hotel  —  waiting  for  the  word 
you  could  not  send." 

They  made  an  intensely  quiet  islet  amidst  the 
buffeting  human  tide.  The  governor's  face  was 
drawn,  and  in  the  electric  glare  looked  pasty 
white. 

"  That  is  why  you  sent  for  me  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  That  is  why.     Believe  me,  it  was  necessary." 

"  I  believe  you,"  Shelby  answered  slowly. 
"  Tell  me  what  you  have  done." 

"  It's  a  short  story.  About  five  o'clock  I 
passed  them.  Their  train  was  at  a  standstill, 


THE   HENCHMAN  365 

mine  was  running  slowly  because  of  a  washout. 
I  saw  your  wife  at  a  window.  Then  we  made 
an  unexpected  stop  near  a  station,  and  I  left 
my  train  for  theirs." 

"Then?" 

"  That's  all.  I  think  neither  was  sorry  to  see 
me.  I  came  at  the  reaction  —  the  psychological 
moment." 

Shelby  thought  North  wished  to  spare  him  the 
recital,  which  was  true  in  a  measure.  Yet  the 
canon's  reticence  had  its  taproot  in  the  natural 
man  who  perforce  did  his  strong  deeds  simply. 

"  Good  night,"  he  added  cheerily,  putting  out 
his  hand.  "  I  find  that  I  can  get  a  train  back 
soon." 


CHAPTER   IX 

A  FEW  minutes  before  eleven  o'clock  Shelby 
and  his  wife  got  out  of  a  carriage  at  a  west-side 
ferry.  With  North's  assurance  that  her  husband 
was  surely  coming,  Cora's  thoughts  turned  to  the 
conventions  which  in  the  morning  she  had  blithely 
whistled  down  the  wind.  It  happened  that  a 
friend  in  the  Jersey  suburbs  had  within  the  week 
suggested  that  they  visit  Lakewood  together,  and 
the  invitation  no  sooner  recurred  to  her  than  she 
sent  a  message  saying  that  she  had  found  it  pos- 
sible immediately  to  join  her  at  her  home.  Shelby 
had  assented  to  this  plan,  and  directly  set  about 
escorting  her  to  her  destination.  No  dread  of 
Ludlow  prompted  this  vigilance.  He  discerned 
that  that  glamour  had  forever  waned.  The 
woman's  jerking  nerves  made  him  fear  a  collapse. 
Stripped  of  shams  for  once,  she  had  his  pity. 

As  he  paid  the  cabman  at  the  ferry-house  en- 
trance an  incoming  boat  discharged  its  passengers, 
who  from  habit  scurried  forth  as  if  it  were  morn- 

366 


THE    HENCHMAN  367 

ing,  and  the  day's  work  lay  all  before.  Two  men 
issued  with  the  foremost,  one  of  whom  spied 
Shelby  as  he  followed  his  wife  through  the  dingy 
swinging  doors. 

"  Great  guns  !  "  he  said ;  "  the  governor !  " 

The  Boss  wheeled. 

"What's  that,  Krantz?"  he  demanded  sharply. 

Without  replying  Jacob  Krantz  darted  into  the 
ferry-house,  slipped  into  the  waiting  line  before 
the  ticket-office,  and  watched  Shelby  make  his 
purchase.  The  governor  left  the  window  with- 
out noticing  him,  and  joining  his  wife  at  the 
wicket  passed  on  to  the  boat. 

Krantz  shot  out  of  doors  with  his  heavy  lids 
propped  wide. 

"  He  bought  tickets  for  Orange,  and  there's 
no  return  train  before  daylight  —  I  heard  him 
inquire.  Do  you  see  what  he  has  done  for  us  ? 
He's  out  of  the  state  —  out  of  the  state  !  See  ? 
The  lieutenant-governor  can  sign  the  bill ! " 

The  Boss  drew  him  quietly  aside. 

"  No,  no,"  he  returned.  "  This  is  New  York 
—  not  Montana." 

Staring  out  at  the  clamoring  cabbies,  the  leader 
reflected.  If  this  secretive  governor  intended 
either  to  veto  or  to  sign  the  canal  bill,  he  would 
scarcely  leave  Albany  the  evening  before  the  last 


368  THE   HENCHMAN 

day  given  him  to  act.  Did  his  absence  not  argue 
that  he  meant  to  let  the  measure  become  a  law 
without  his  signature  ?  Despite  his  representa- 
tions to  Shelby,  this  was  the  course  the  Boss 
actually  expected  the  governor  to  take.  It  was 
the  course  which  he,  given  the  man's  difficulties, 
would  himself  follow  were  he  in  Shelby's  place. 
But  he  had  found  it  unsafe  to  forecast  this 
man's  actions  by  his  own,  and  by  temperament 
he  counted  nothing  certain  till  he  knew  it  as  a 
fact  accomplished.  The  governor  would  un- 
doubtedly return  to  Albany  sometime  to-mor- 
row ;  it  therefore  behooved  him  to  delay  that 
return  until  the  time  for  hostile  action  should 
expire.  Searching  out  a  telegraph  office,  he  ascer- 
tained the  point  at  which  a  message  would  inter- 
cept the  train,  and  wired  Shelby  a  peremptory 
request  for  a  meeting  in  New  York  on  the  mor- 
row at  ten  o'clock. 

"  I'm  making  a  morning  appointment  with  the 
governor,"  he  told  Krantz. 

The  satellite  slanted  his  head  knowingly. 

Past  midnight  the  answer  reached  the  club 
where  the  Boss  made  his  bachelor  home.  If 
Shelby  was  amazed  at  Old  Silky's  intimate 
knowledge  of  his  movements,  his  message  did 
not  betray  it.  Nor  did  the  Boss  betray  his  own 


THE   HENCHMAN  369 

amazement  at  his  too  apt  pupil's  prompt  evasion 
of  a  snare.  What  he  read  was  this  :  — 

"  The  governor's  office  hours  are  nine  to 
five." 

Krantz  in  his  eagerness  would  have  laid  pro- 
fane hands  on  the  missive,  but  the  Boss  permitted 
him  neither  to  touch  nor  see. 

"  It  seems  that  he  intends  returning  to  Albany 
to-night,"  he  said  calmly.  "  It  occurs  to  me,  after 
all,  that  he  can  reach  New  York  by  trolley.  Prob- 
ably he'll  take  the  paper  train  which  leaves  about 
three.  Energetic  man  —  very." 

"  Then  you'll  see  him  to-night  ?  " 

"  No ;  not  to-night,"  rejoined  the  Boss,  dryly. 
"  I'm  going  to  bed." 

Krantz  watched  the  reverend  figure  out  of  the 
smoking-room  with  his  narrow  eyes,  and  for  a 
time  sat  as  motionless  as  a  dozing  crocodile. 
Finally  he  roused  and  lounged  toward  the  door, 
where  he  received  a  revelation.  Bag  in  hand, 
the  Boss,  whom  he  imaged  above  stairs  between 
sheets,  was  unostentatiously  letting  himself  out 
into  the  night. 

Shelby  went  directly  to  his  berth  on  reaching 
the  station,  and  while  the  car  remained  in  the 
train  shed,  slept.  The  departure  wakened  him, 
and  after  useless  striving  he  resigned  himself  to 


370  THE    HENCHMAN 

his  insomnia,  raised  his  window  curtain,  and  lay 
watching  the  staid  procession  of  Dutch-named 
towns  picketting  the  river  banks.  A  mimic  tem- 
pest fretted  the  Tappan  Sea,  whose  bravado  dwin- 
dled to  mere  guerilla  marauding  in  the  Highlands, 
and  vanished  altogether  where  the  Storm  King 
held  the  pass  and  heralded  the  dawn.  Presently 
the  purple  Catskills  marched  and  countermarched 
into  line  with  cloud  banners  streaming  rose-red 
in  the  sunrise.  Yesterday  was  blotted  in  to-day. 
The  watcher  also  put  yesterday  away,  dressed, 
and  left  his  train  all  in  a  tranquillity  which  even 
the  knowledge  that  a  stateroom  door  neighboring 
his  berth  had  just  emitted  the  Boss  could  not 
have  ruffled. 

At  his  accustomed  hour  the  governor  entered 
the  executive  chamber.  Like  the  steaming  earth 
and  the  park  elms  without  in  their  tender  green, 
this  stately  room  seemed  swept  by  the  breath  of 
spring.  The  warm  tones  of  the  hangings,  the 
Spanish  leather,  the  lavish  mahogany,  glowed 
responsive  to  the  fingering  sunlight,  and  the 
painted  simulacra  of  his  predecessors  looked 
down  almost  benignantly  from  their  gilded  frames. 
The  little  cell  behind  the  wainscoting,  into  which 
the  increasing  complexity  of  affairs  had  forced  the 
recent  executives,  claimed  him  during  most  of  his 


THE   HENCHMAN  371 

working  hours ;  but  it  was  as  rightful  tenant  of 
this  vast  chamber  that  he  felt  most  the  governor 
of  New  York.  It  epitomized  for  him  not  merely 
the  commonwealth  of  the  present,  huge  as  it  was, 
but  the  whole  historic  past  since  the  September 
day  when  Hendrik  Hudson's  Half  Moon  dropped 
anchor  down  yonder  in  the  stream.  He  felt  him- 
self no  more  the  successor  of  these  frock-coated 
moderns  whose  oil  presentments  covered  panelling 
and  frieze  than  of  the  periwigs  who  ruled  before 
them.  He  was  the  heir  of  Stuyvesant,  Dongan, 
and  Lord  Lovelace  no  less  than  of  Cleveland, 
Van  Buren,  and  John  Jay.  There  had  been 
sturdy  souls  among  that  company ;  men  who 
had  hoped  mightily,  striven  mightily,  sometimes 
achieved  mightily.  Some  few  had  attained  the 
presidency  of  the  United  States ;  some  barely 
missed  the  prize ;  some  pursued  it  to  their  bitter 
graves.  Where  would  he  rank  ?  According  to 
a  newspaper  he  carried  in  his  hand,  it  lay  with  him 
this  day  to  determine.  Yet  for  one  so  omniscient, 
the  editor  was  chary  of  counsel. 

Shelby  went  on  to  his  little  inner  room  and 
took  up  the  day's  routine  with  his  secretary,  who 
casually  dropped  the  news  that  the  Boss  had  that 
morning  arrived  in  Albany  and  begun  to  receive 
the  faithful  at  an  early  hour.  Whether  owing 


372  THE   HENCHMAN 

to  this  cause  or  not,  Shelby's  own  quota  of  legis- 
lative callers  was  small.  At  ten  o'clock  he  met 
briefly  the  delegates  of  a  labor  organization,  who  in 
an  embarrassed  fashion  had  much  to  say  of  pluto- 
crats and  trusts ;  and  with  their  departure  came  a 
fluttering  invasion  from  a  young  ladies'  boarding- 
school,  headed  by  a  chaperone  laboriously  intent 
on  improving  the  girlish  mind.  All  requested 
autographs,  which  were  readily  supplied  from  the 
stock  in  hand,  and  a  round  half-dozen  asked  the 
private  secretary  in  strictest  confidence  if  the  gov- 
ernor were  a  married  man. 

He  had  but  just  returned  to  his  desk  when  an 
orderly  handed  him  the  card  of  the  Boss. 

"  You'll  see  him  here  ?  "  asked  the  man. 

"  No.  In  the  executive  chamber,"  answered 
Shelby. 

The  Boss  stood  beside  the  massive  fireplace, 
gazing  pensively  up  at  a  portrait  of  Washington. 

"  Ah,  good  morning,  governor,"  he  called, 
turning  slowly.  "  I  trust  I'm  well  within  the 
official  hours." 

"  Quite." 

"  Mahomet  is  somewhat  stricken  in  years,  and 
night  travel  impairs  his  digestion,  but  if  need  be, 
he  can  come  to  the  mountain  still." 

"  It  was  the  governor  of  the  state  your  message 


THE    HENCHMAN  373 

offended,"  said  Shelby,  quietly.  "  Personally  I'm 
not  thin-skinned,  as  you  know." 

"Yet,  in  my  poor  way  — "  the  Boss  included 
the  chamber  in  a  comprehensive  gesture. 

"  Yes ;  in  last  analysis  you  put  me  here.  I 
don't  forget  that." 

The  leader  shrugged. 

"  You  were  always  so  devilishly  direct,  Ross," 
he  let  fall  good-humoredly.  "  It's  your  besetting 
sin,  and  spoiled  the  making  of  a  clever  politician. 
You  lack  the  diplomatic  instinct." 

Shelby  proved  him  in  the  right  immediately. 

"You've  come  about  the  canal  bill,"  he  said. 
"  Sit  down." 

"  Yes  ;  the  canal  bill  —  and  other  matters." 
He  laid  his  hat  and  stick  upon  a  desk,  and  draw- 
ing a  chair  beside  Shelby's  near  a  window  embra- 
sure, leaned  to  him,  chin  in  hand,  as  in  the  days 
of  their  hand-in-glove  intimacy.  "  Between  us 
two  plain  speech  after  all  is  best,"  he  went  on. 
"  You've  no  mistaken  notions  about  me.  You 
recognize  the  newspaper  bogy  which  goes  by  my 
name  as  a  caricature.  You  know  that  I  am  as 
proud  of  this  state  in  my  way  as  you  are  in  your 
way.  You  know  also  the  manner  and  method 
of  my  ascendency  in  state  affairs,  and  by  the 
same  insight  you  know  its  scope." 


374  THE    HENCHMAN 

"Yes.     I  know  its  scope." 

"  So  far  as  knowledge  of  method  goes,  you  are 
as  capable  of  party  leadership  as  I.  Indeed,  if 
that  were  all,  you  might  set  up  a  rival  shop,  as 
some  of  the  editors  kindly  suggest,  and  attempt 
to  put  me  out  of  business.  Naturally  you  don't 
share  that  delusion." 

"  No." 

"  No ;  you're  too  sane.  My  tenure  doesn't 
rest  on  mere  control  of  the  purse-strings.  My 
great  asset  is  forty  years'  dealing  with  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men.  Nobody  else  has  quite 
my  equipment." 

"  Why  tell  me  what  I  know  ?  All  talk  of  my 
setting  up  a  machine  of  my  own  is  idle.  I  am 
aware  of  the  extent  of  your  influence.  You  have 
tacitly  offered  me  the  state  delegation  to  the 
national  convention  in  June,  and  it  is  within  your 
power  to  deliver  it  —  probably  to  name  the  candi- 
date. Have  you  come  to  withdraw  the  offer  ?  " 

The  Boss  straightened. 

"  I  have  come  in  a  spirit  of  compromise,"  he 
returned.  "  We've  differed  widely  on  this  ques- 
tion of  a  greater  canal.  You  have  evolved  a 
plan  best  suited  to  Utopia ;  my  own  is  aimed  to 
meet  the  human  nature  I  know  best  —  the  human 
nature  De  Witt  Clinton,  in  whose  steps  you  evi- 


THE    HENCHMAN  375 

dently  aspire  to  tread,  comprehended  and  took 
into  the  reckoning.  Be  practical  as  he  was  prac- 
tical—  as  you  were  in  the  early  days  of  our  ac- 
quaintance. I  no  longer  ask  you  to  sign  the 
bill ;  I  respect  your  punctilio.  I  only  beg  that 
you  will  permit  this  measure  which  your  party 
has  espoused  to  become  a  law  without  your  sig- 
nature. Everybody  will  understand  your  posi- 
tion. You  will  occupy  an  honorable  middle 
ground." 

"  For  me  there  is  no  honorable  middle  ground. 
It  lies  with  me  to  approve  or  reject." 

The  Boss  got  upon  his  feet. 

"  I  dislike  coercion,"  he  said. 

The  governor  rose. 

"  You  need  use  none.  No  amount  of  it  could 
hypnotize  me  into  seeing  a  bad  bill  as  a  good  bill." 

"  Do  you  count  the  presidency  so  lightly  ?  " 

"  No  American  can  count  it  lightly." 

"You  face  political  suicide.  Do  you  fancy 
your  renomination  for  this  office  possible  ?  " 

"  No.     I  have  weighed  that,  too." 

"And  your  virtue  is  unshaken?" 

The  governor  smiled  at  the  sneer. 

"  Oh,  I'm  past  all  that,"  he  said.  "  I  took 
the  precaution  to  veto  the  bill  before  you  came 
to  tempt." 


376  THE   HENCHMAN 

With  uncertain  step  the  old  leader  turned  and 
made  his  way  to  the  door,  where  he  paused  to 
vent  his  bewildered,  yet  sincere  judgment. 

"  I've  never  met  anybody  quite  like  you  in 
politics,  Shelby,"  he  owned,  almost  kindly. 
"  You  are  a  paradox  —  a  sort  of  admirable  fool." 


THE   CONQUEROR 

Being  the  True  and  Romantic  Story  of  Alexander  Hamilton 

By  GERTRUDE  ATHERTON 

Author  of  "Senator  North,"  "  The  Aristocrats,"  etc.,  etc. 

Cloth.     i2mo.    $1.50 

"  This  book  is  a  very  remarkable  work,  and  as  already  hinted, 
it  is  not  improbable  that  it  will  prove  the  originator  of  a  new 
kind  of  biography,  careful,  conscientious  studies  of  great  careers, 
so  written  that  their  perusal  will  become  a  pleasure  to  the  aver- 
age man  as  well  as  to  the  student."  —  Boston  Budget. 

"  In  the  very  finest  sense  of  the  word  an  historical  novel  .  .  . 
done  with  the  genius  of  enthusiasm  and  colored  by  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  true  romancist  ...  an  imperishable  portrait." 

—  Town  Topics. 


THE  FAVOR  OF  PRINCES 

By  MARK    LEE    LUTHER 

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"  Those  who  are  on  the  lookout  always  for  something  worth 
reading  in  fiction  and  whose  appetite  has  been  somewhat  dis- 
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story."  —  Buffalo  Commercial. 

"  Mr.  Luther's  story  not  only  gives  an  insight  into  an  impor- 
tant epoch  of  the  world's  history,  but  it  impresses  the  reader 
with  the  manliness  and  strength  of  candor  and  honesty,  com- 
pared with  the  cowardice  and  real  weakness  of  shams  and 
intrigue." — Chicago  Tribune. 


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THE   VIRGINIAN 

A   HORSEMAN   OF   THE   PLAINS 

By  OWEN    WISTER 

Author  of  "Lin  McLean,"  "U.  S.  Grant:  a  Biography,"  etc. 

With  Eight  Full-page  Illustrations  by  ARTHUR  I.  KELLER 

Cloth.      i2mo.      $1.50 

"  Among  the  stories  that  portray  the  rude,  open-air  life  of  the  far  west, 
that  which  seems  entitled  by  right  to  first  place  is  '  The  Virginian,'  by  Owen 
Wister.  .  .  .  There  is  a  breeziness  about  this  book,  a  buoyancy,  a  spirit  of 
virility,  a  combination  of  serious  purpose  and  genuine  humor  such  as  can 
be  seldom  found."  —  The  Commercial  Advertiser. 

"  There  is  not  a  page  in  Mr.  Wister's  new  book  which  is  not  interesting. 
This  is  its  first  great  merit,  that  it  arouses  the  sympathy  of  the  reader  and 
holds  him  absorbed  and  amused  to  the  end.  It  does  a  great  deal  more 
for  him.  .  .  .  Whoever  reads  the  first  page  will  find  it  next  to  impossible 
to  put  the  book  down  until  he  has  read  every  one  of  the  five  hundred  and 
four  in  the  book,  and  then  he  will  wish  there  were  more  of  them." 

—  The  New  York  Tribune. 


Dorothy  Vernon  of  Haddon  Hall 

By  CHARLES  MAJOR 
Author  of  "When  Knighthood  was  In  Flower,"  etc. 

With  Eight  Full-page  Illustrations  by  HOWARD  CHANDLER  CHRISTY 
Cloth.       i2mo.      $1.50 

"  Dorothy  is  a  splendid  creation,  a  superb  creature  of  brains,  beauty, 
force,  capacity,  and  passion ;  a  riot  of  energy,  love,  and  red  blood.  She  is 
the  fairest,  fiercest,  strongest,  tenderest  heroine  that  ever  woke  up  a  jaded 
novel  reader  and  made  him  realize  that  life  will  be  worth  living  so  long  as 
the  writers  of  fiction  create  her  like.  .  .  .  The  story  has  brains,  'go,' 
virility,  gumption,  and  originality."  —  The  Boston  Herald. 

"  Dorothy  is  a  fascinating  character,  whose  womanly  whims  and  cun- 
ning ways  in  dealing  with  her  manly,  honest  lover  and  her  wrathful  father 
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have  tried  (and  satisfied)  men's  souls  from  the  days  of  Mother  Eve  to  the 
present  time."  —  The  New  York  Herald. 


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(1C  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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